UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 

Gift  of 
Miss  L. Belle  Ford 


UNIVBKSiTY  01  CALiFOHNlA 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 

LIBRARY 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

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iittpy/www.archive.org/details/boinemiainlondonOOransiala 


BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 


A  SOHO  RESTAURANT 


Bohemia  in  London 


BY 


ARTHUR    RANSOME 

AtTTHOR   OF  "  THE   SOULS   OP   THB   STREETS " 
"  THB  STONE   LADY,"  ETC. 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY 
FRED  TAYLOR 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY 

1907 


134064 


Copyright,  1907,  by 

DODD,   MEAD   &  COMPANY 

Published  October,  igoj 


AT 

/ 

^; 

N 


^ 


TO 

M.  P.  SHIEL 


:) 


NOTE 

This  book  would  never  have  been 

begun   if   it   had  not   been   for  the 

^  friendly  suggestion   of  Miss  Ocean 

^\  Lee.     It    would    never    have    been 

finished  but  for  the  strenuous  scold- 

^  ing    and    encouragement     of    Mr. 

Hughes  Massie.   It  would  be  worse 

than   it  is  if  my  friends,  especially 

Mr.  Edward  Thomas,  had  been  less 

generous  of  their  advice. 

^  Carlyle  Studios, 

A  July,  1907. 


.1 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER 

PAGE 

Planning  books  and  writing  them — The  material  of  the 
book — Paris  and  London — ^The  method  of  the 
book — The  word  "  Bohemia  " — Villon — Grub 
Street — Hazlitt  and  Reynolds — Petrus  Borel, 
Gautier,  Murger — Modern  Bohemia — Geography         3 

AN  ARRIVAL   IN   BOHEMIA 

Walking  home  in  the  morning — ^Cofltee-stalls — Haz- 
litt, De  Quincey,  Goldsmith — The  grocer's  van — 
The  journey — "  Love  for  Love  "  at  the  World's 
End — ^The  first  lodging — Furniture — ^The  first 
night  in  Bohemia 15 

OLD   AND   NEW   CHELSEA 

Don  Saltero's— Smollett— Franklin— The  P.B.— Car- 
lyle  and  Hunt — Carlyle's  house — Chelsea  and  the 
river  —  Rossetti  in  Cheyne  Walk  —  Whistler's 
dinner-party — and  Steele's — ^Turner's  house — ^The 
Embankment 33 

A   CHELSEA  EVENING 

An  actor — "  Gypsy  " — A  room  out  of  a  fairy  tale — 
guests — "  Opal  hush  " — Singing  and  Stories — 
Going  home 51 


CONTENTS 

IN  THE  STUDIOS 


PACE 


The  Studio — Posing  the  model — ^Talking  and  painting 
—The  studio  lunch — The  interrupter — ^Artists* 
models — ^The  Chelsea  Art  Club — ^The  Langham 
Sketch  Club — Sets  in  the  Studios — Hospitality    .       69 

THE  COUNTRY  IN   BOHEMIA 

London  full  of  countrymen — Hazlitt  in  the  Southamp- 
ton— Burrow  and  the  publisher — Bampfylde's  life 
— ^The  consolation  of  the  country — Country  songs 
from  an  artist's  model — ^A  village  reputation     .       87 

OLD  AND   NEW  SOHO 

Pierce  Egan — "  Life  in  London  " — De  Quincey  in 
Greek  Street — Thackeray — Sandwiches  and  ba- 
nanas— Barrel-organs — ^The  Soho  restaurants — 
Beguinot's — ^The    Dieppe — Brice's — ^The   waiters     loi 

COFFEE-HOUSES  ABOUT   SOHO 

Casanova  at  the  Orange — ^The  Moorish — ^The  Alge- 
rian— the  Petit  Riche — ^The  Bohemian  in  the 
Provence — Newspaper  proprietors  in  the  Europe     121 

THE  BOOKSHOPS  OF  BOHEMIA 

The  Charing  Cross  Road  —  Book-buying  —  "  The 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy  " — The  ordinary  shop — 
Richard  Savage  pawning  books — Selling  review 
copies — Gay  and  the  bookshops — Lamb  and 
"  street  readers  " — Market-stalls — ^True  Book- 
men— Old  ladies — ^Tom  Folio — ^A  prayer  to  my 
publishers      . 137 


CONTENTS 

OLD  AND  NEW  FLEET  STREET 

PAGE 

Johnson  and  Boswell — Goldsmith  and  Doctor  Kenrick 
— Hazlitt  and  Charles  Lamb — De  Quincey  and 
Coleridge  at  the  Courier  office — ^The  "  Tom  and 
Jerry  "  times — Dickens — Elizabethan  Fleet  Street 
— Fleet  Street  on  a  sunny  morning — ^The  pedes- 
trians —  Mitre  Court  —  Salisbury  Court  —  The 
Cock — The  Cheshire  Cheese — ^The  Rhymers' 
Club — The  Press  Club — Cafes  in  Fleet  Street — ^A 
Fleet  Street  Talking  Club 153 

SOME   NEWSPAPERS   AND   MAGAZINES 

An    organ    of    enlightened    criticism — An    editor — 
Methods  of  work — ^The  gay  way  with  reviewing 
— Log-rolling — Our  circulation — Another  editor 
— ^Two  more — ^The  Bohemian  magazines — Finan- 
ciers and  poets 175 

WAYS   AND   MEANS 

Literary  Ghosting — "  An  author  to  be  let  " — ^Borrow- 
ing Chatterton — ^Waiting  for  your  money — Pen- 
ury and  art — Extravagance  the  compensation  for 
poverty — Scroggen — ^A  justifiable  debauch      .      .     193 

TALKING,  DRINKING  AND   SMOKING 

The  true  way  for  enjoyment — "  Tavern  crawls  " — 
The  right  reader — Doctor  Johnson — Ben  Jonson 
— Beaumont — Gay — Herrick — "  The  Ballad  of 
Nappy  Ale  "  —  Keats  —  William  Davies  —  The 
Rules  of  the  old  talking  clubs — ^To  the  reader     .     209 


CONTENTS 

OLD  AND   NEW  HAMPSTEAD 


PAGE 


Steele — The  Kit-Cats — Dickens  and  red-hot  chops — 
Lamb — Leigh  Hunt's  cottage — "  Sleep  and  Poe- 
try " — Hazlitt  on  Leigh  Hunt — Leigh  Hunt's 
friends — Modern  Hampstead — The  salons — ^The 
conversation — The  Hempstead  poets  ....     229 

A  WEDDING  AN   BOHEMIA 

Bride  and  bridegroom — ^The  procession — Madame  of 

the  restaurant — Creme  de  Menthe — The  morning    24 1 


A  NOVELIST 


A   PAINTER 


A  GIPSY   POET 


255 


267 


275 


CONCLUSION 

Crabbe  in  1781  and  In  18 17 — Bohemia  only  a  stage  in 
a  man's  life — ^The  escape  from  convention — Prac- 
tical matters — Hazlitt  and  John  Lamb — ^The 
farewell  to  Bohemia — Marriage — Success — Quod 
erat  demonstrandum     .     .     , 283 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


A  SoHO  Restaurant 

The  Coffee  Stall  . 

RossETTi's  House  in  Cheyne  Walk 

Work      ..... 

The  Artist's  Model 

In  the  Moorish  Cafj^     . 

"  Comfort  and  Secluded  Luxury 

The  Wild  Bohemian 

A  Bookshop     .... 

The    Bookstalls    of    the    Charing 

Cross  Road 
Doctor  Johnson's  House  in  Gough 

Square      .... 
Fleet  Street  .... 
The  Old  Cheshire  Cheese 
The  Editor      .... 
The   Novelist 
The  River  from  Battersea  Bridge 


. 

Front  is 

piece 

Facing  page 

i6 

42 

74 

94 

124 

128 

130 

140 

148 

154 

158 

164 
176 
256 
278 


'  Ce  livre  est  touie  ma  jeunesse; 
Je  Vai  fait  sans  presque  y  songer. 
II  y  parait,  je  le  confesse, 
Et  j'aurais  pu  le  corriger. 

Mais  quand  I'homme  change  sans  cesse, 
Au  passe  pourquoi  rien  changer? 
Va-t'en,  pauvre  oiseau  passager; 
Que  Dieu  te  mene  a  ton  adressel " 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER 

WHEN  authors  are  honest  to  them- 
selves, they  admit  that  their  books 
are  failures,  in  that  they  are  never 
quite  what  they  wished  to  make 
them.  A  book  has  a  wilful  way  of  its  own,  as 
soon  as  it  is  fairly  started,  and  somehow  has  a 
knack  of  cheating  its  writer  out  of  itself  and 
changing  into  something  different.  It  is  usually 
a  reversal  of  the  story  of  "  Beauty  and  the  Beast." 
The  odious  beast  does  not  become  a  prince;  but 
a  wonderful,  clear,  brilliant-coloured  dream  (as 
all  books  are  before  they  are  written)  turns  in 
the  very  hands  of  its  author  into  a  monster  that 
he  does  not  recognise. 

I  wanted  to  write  a  book  that  would  make  real 
on  paper  the  strange,  tense,  joyful  and  despair- 
ing, hopeful  and  sordid  life  that  is  lived  in  Lon- 
don by  young  artists  and  writers.  I  wanted  to 
present  life  in  London  as  it  touches  the  people 
who  come  here,  like  Whittingtons,  to  seek  the 
gold  of  fame  on  London  pavements.  They  are 
conscious  of  the  larger  life  of  the  town,  of  the 
struggling  millions  earning  their  weekly  wages, 
of  the  thousands  of  the  abyss  who  earn  no  wages 
and  drift  from  shelter  to  shelter  till  they  die; 


4  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

they  know  that  there  is  a  mysterious  East  End, 
full  of  crowded,  ill-conditioned  life ;  they  know 
that  there  is  a  West  End,  of  fine  houses  and  a 
more  elaborate  existence;  they  have  a  confused 
knowledge  of  the  whole,  but  only  a  part  be- 
comes alive  and  real,  as  far  as  they  themselves 
are  concerned.  That  part  is  the  material  of 
which  I  hoped  to  make  this  book. 

There  are  a  dozen  flippant,  merry  treatises 
on  Bohemia  in  London,  that  talk  of  the  Savage 
Club,  and  the  Vagabond  dinners,  and  all  the 
other  consciously  unconventional  things  that 
like  to  consider  themselves  Bohemian.  But 
these  are  not  the  real  things;  no  young  poet  or 
artist  fresh  to  London,  with  all  his  hopes  unreal- 
ised, all  his  capacity  for  original  living  unspent, 
has  anything  to  do  with  them.  They  bear  no 
more  vital  relation  to  the  Bohemian  life  that  is 
actually  lived  than  masquerades  or  fancy  dress 
balls  bear  to  more  ordinary  existence.  Mem- 
bers of  the  Savage  Club,  guests  of  the  Vaga- 
bonds have  either  grown  out  of  the  life  that 
should  be  in  my  book,  or  else  have  never  lived 
in  it.  They  are  respectable  citizens,  dine  com- 
fortably, sleep  in  feather-beds,  and  find  hot 
water  waiting  for  them  in  the  mornings.  It 
is,  perhaps,  the  unreality  of  their  pretences  that 
makes  honest  outsiders  who  are  disgusted  at  the 
imitation,  or  able  to  compare  them  with  the 
inhabitants  of  the  Quartier  or  Montmartre,  say 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER  5 

that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  Bohemia  in 
London. 

But  there  is;  and  anyone  who  considers  the 
number  of  adventurous  young  people  fresh 
from  conventional  homes,  and  consequently 
ready  to  live  in  any  way  other  than  that  to  which 
they  have  been  accustomed,  who  come  to  town 
with  heads  more  full  of  poetry  than  sense,  must 
realise  how  impossible  it  is  that  there  should 
not  be.  Indeed,  it  is  likely  that  our  Bohemia, 
certainly  in  these  days,  is  more  real  than  that 
of  Paris,  for  the  Quartier  is  so  well  advertised 
that  it  has  become  fashionable,  and  Americans 
who  can  afford  it  go  there,  and  almost  out- 
number the  others  who  cannot  afford  anything 
else.  Of  course,  in  London  too,  there  are  people 
who  are  Bohemians  for  fun;  but  not  so  many, 
because  the  fun  in  London  is  not  an  organised 
merriment  that  anyone  may  enjoy  who  can  pay 
for  it.  Visitors  to  London  do  not  find,  as  they 
do  in  Paris,  men  waiting  about  the  principal 
streets,  offering  themselves  as  guides  to  Bohe- 
mia. The  fun  is  in  the  life  itself,  and  not  to  be 
had  less  cheaply  than  by  living  it. 

I  wanted  to  get  into  my  book,  for  example, 
the  precarious,  haphazard  existence  of  the  men 
who  dine  in  Soho  not  because  it  is  an  uncon- 
ventional thing  to  do,  but  because  they  cannot 
usually  afford  to  dine  at  all,  and  get  better  and 
merrier  dinners  for  their  money  there  than  else- 


6  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

where,  the  men  who,  when  less  opulent,  eat 
mussels  from  a  street  stall  without  unseemly 
amusement  at  the  joke  of  doing  so,  but  as  sol- 
emnly as  you  and  I  eat  through  our  respectable 
meals,  solacing  themselves  meanwhile  with  the 
thought  of  high  ideals  that  you  and  I,  being 
better  fed,  find  less  real,  less  insistent. 

It  was  a  difficult  thing  to  attempt;  if  I  had 
simply  written  from  the  outside,  and  announced 
that  oddly  dressed  artists  ate  bananas  in  the 
streets,  that  is  all  that  could  be  said;  there  is 
an  end  of  it,  the  meaning,  the  essence  of  the 
thing  is  lost,  and  it  becomes  nothing  but  a  dull 
observation  of  a  phenomenon  of  London  life. 
There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  confess,  to  write 
in  the  first  person  of  my  own  uncomfortable 
happy  years,  and  to  trust  that  the  hall  mark  of 
actual  experience  would  give  blood  and  life,  at 
least  to  some  parts  of  the  picture.  Now  that 
would  have  been  very  pleasant  for  me,  in  spite 
of  the  risk  that  a  succession  of  pictures  con- 
nected by  an  ego,  should  seem  a  conceited  ego 
exhibiting  itself  by  means  of  a  succession  of 
pictures.  But  there  was  another  bother;  for  the 
life  would  not  have  been  expressed  if  there  were 
no  suggestion  of  the  older  time,  the  memories 
of  famous  artists  and  writers  that  contribute  to 
make  the  poetry  of  the  present.  Now  it  was 
impossibly  ludicrous  to  be  continually  flying 
off  from  the  detailed  experience  of  an  insignifi- 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER  7 

cant  person  like  myself,  to  dismiss  in  a  cursory 
sentence  men  like  Johnson,  Hazlitt,  or  Sir  Rich- 
ard Steele.  Separate  chapters  had  to  be  written 
on  historical  Bohemia,  giving  in  as  short  a  space 
as  possible  something  of  the  atmosphere  of  remi- 
niscence belonging  to  particular  localities. 
There  are  consequently  two  separate  threads 
intertwisted  through  the  book,  general,  histor- 
ical, and  descriptive  chapters,  as  impersonal  as 
an  egotist  could  make  them,  chapters  on  Chel- 
sea, Fleet  Street,  Soho,  and  Hampstead,  and  any 
number  of  single  incidents  and  talks  about  dif- 
ferent aspects  of  Bohemian  life — in  short,  all 
the  hotch-potch  that  would  be  likely  to  come 
out  if  a  Bohemian  were  doing  his  best  to  let 
someone  else  understand  his  manner  of  living. 
A  chapter  on  the  old  bookstalls  will  jostle  with 
an  account  of  the  Soho  coffee-houses.  One 
chapter  will  be  a  straightforward  narrative  of 
an  adventure,  another  a  discussion  of  the  amaz- 
ing contrast  between  the  country  and  the  town, 
the  life  of  the  Bohemians  and  the  places  from 
which  they  come.  The  whole,  I  had  hoped, 
would  give  something  like  an  impression  of  the 
untidy  life  itself, 

Bohemia  is  an  abominable  word,  with  an  air 
of  tinsel  and  sham,  and  of  suburban  daughters 
who  criticise  musical  comedies  seriously,  and 
remind  you  twice  in  an  afternoon  that  they  are 


8  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

quite  unconventional.  But  the  best  dictionaries 
define  it  as:  "  (i)  A  certain  small  country;  (2) 
The  gypsy  life;  (3)  Any  disreputable  life; 
(4)  The  life  of  writers  and  painters " — in  an 
order  of  descent  that  is  really  quite  pleasant. 
And  on  consulting  a  classic  work  to  find  syn- 
onyms for  a  Bohemian,  I  find  the  following: 
"  Peregrinator,  wanderer,  rover,  straggler, 
rambler,  bird  of  passage,  gadabout,  vagrant, 
scatterling,  landloper,  waif  and  stray,  wastrel, 
loafer,  tramp,  vagabond,  nomad,  gypsy,  emi- 
grant, and  peripatetic  somnambulist."  If  we 
think  of  the  word  in  the  atmosphere  of  all  those 
others,  it  is  not  so  abominable  after  all,  and  I 
cannot  find  a  better. 

I  suppose  Villon  is  the  first  remembered 
Bohemian  poet.  He  had  an  uncomfortable  life 
and  an  untidy  death.  Hunted  from  tavern  to 
tavern,  from  place  to  place,  stealing  a  goose 
there,  killing  a  man  here  in  a  drunken  brawl, 
and  swinging  from  a  gibbet  in  the  end,  he  is  a 
worthy  example  for  the  consideration  of  all 
young  people  who  wish  to  follow  literature  or 
art  without  any  money  in  their  pockets.  But 
even  his  fate  would  not  deter  them.  Indeed, 
when  I  was  setting  out,  I  even  wished  to  emu- 
late him,  and  was  so  foolish  as  to  write  to  an 
older  friend  that  I  wanted  to  be  such  another 
vagabond  as  Villon,  and  work  and  live  in  my 
own  free  way.    The  conceit  of  it,  the  idiocy — 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER  9 

and  yet,  it  is  something  to  remember  that  you 
have  once  felt  like  that.  My  friend  wrote  back 
to  me  that  of  all  kinds  of  bondage,  vagabond- 
age w^as  the  most  cruel  and  the  hardest  from 
which  to  escape.  I  believe  him  now,  but  then 
I  adventured  all  the  same. 

Looking  from  Villon  down  the  centuries, 
Grub  Street  seems  to  be  the  next  important 
historical  fact,  a  street  of  mean  lodgings  where 
poor  hacks  wrote  rubbish  for  a  pittance,  or 
starved — not  a  merry  place. 

And  then  to  the  happy  time  in  England,  when 
the  greatest  English  critic,  William  Hazlitt, 
could  write  his  best  on  a  dead  player  of  hand 
fives ;  when  Reynolds,  the  friend  of  Keats,  could 
write  a  sonnet  on  appearing  before  his  lady 
with  a  black  eye,  "  after  a  casual  turn  up,"  and 
speak  of  "  the  great  men  of  this  age  in  poetry, 
philosophy,  or  pugilism.^'* 

Then  we  think  of  the  Romantics  in  France. 
There  was  the  sturdy  poet,  Petrus  Borel,  set- 
ting up  his  "  Tartars'  Camp  "  in  a  house  in 
Paris,  with  its  one  defiant  rule  pasted  on  the 
door:  "  All  clothing  is  prohibited."  There  was 
Balzac,  writing  for  a  fortnight  on  end  without 
leaving  his  garret.  There  was  Theophile  Gau- 
tier,  wishing  he  had  been  born  in  the  pomp  of 
ancient  days,  contenting  his  Grecian  instincts  by 
writing  Mademoiselle  de  Maupin  in  six  weeks 
in  a  big,  bare  room,  with  foils  and  boxing  gloves 


lo  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

lying  always  ready  for  the  other  Romantics  who 
shared  the  place  with  him,  and  played  the 
Porthos  and  the  Aramis  with  a  noble  scorn  for 
the  nineteenth  century.  There  was  the  whole 
jolly  crowd  that  clapped  Hernani  into  fame, 
and  lasted  bravely  on  through  Murger's  day — 
Murger,  with  his  Scenes  de  la  Vie  de  Boheme, 
and  his  melancholy  verdict,  "  Bohemia  is  the 
preface  to  the  Academy,  the  Hospital,  or  the 
Morgue." 

And  now,  to-day,  in  this  London  Bohemia 
of  ours,  whose  existence  is  denied  by  the 
ignorant,  all  these  different  atmospheres  are 
blended  into  as  many  colours  as  the  iridescence 
of  a  street  gutter.  Our  Villous  do  not  perhaps 
kill  people,  but  they  are  not  without  their 
tavern  brawls.  They  still  live  and  write  poetry 
in  the  slums.  One  of  the  best  books  of  verse 
published  in  recent  years  was  dated  from  a  doss- 
house  in  the  Marshalsea.  Our  Petrus  Borels, 
our  Gautiers,  sighing  still  for  more  free  and 
spacious  times,  come  fresh  from  Oxford  or 
Cambridge,  write  funny  sonnets  lamenting  the 
age  of  Casanova,  and,  in  a  pleasant,  harmless 
way,  do  their  best  to  imitate  him.  Our  Rey- 
noldses  are  mad  over  football,  and  compose 
verse  and  prose  upon  the  cricket  field.  Our 
Romantics  strut  the  streets  in  crimson  sashes, 
carry  daggers  for  their  own  delight,  and  fence 
and  box  and  compose  extravagant  happy  tales. 


INTRODUCTORY   CHAPTER  ii 

Grub  Street  has  broken  up  into  a  thousand  gar- 
rets, but  the  hacks  are  still  the  same.  And,  as 
for  Murger's  young  men,  as  for  Collin,  as  for 
Schaunard  with  his  hundred  ways  of  obtaining 
a  five-franc  piece,  why,  I  knew  one  who  lived 
well  for  a  year  on  three  and  sixpence  of  his  own 
money  and  a  handsome  borrowing  face. 

"Where  are  they  all?"  you  ask.  "Where 
is  the  Quartier?"  It  is  difficult  to  give  an 
answer  without  telling  lies.  For  London  is 
more  unwieldy  than  Paris.  It  is  impossible 
to  draw  a  map,  and  say,  pointing  with  a  finger, 
"  Here  are  artists,  here  romantic  poets,  here 
playwrights,  here  writers  of  polemic  prose." 
They  are  scattered  over  a  dozen  districts,  and 
mingled  all  together.  There  are  only  a  few 
obvious  grouping  points.  The  newspapers,  of 
course,  are  in  Fleet  Street,  and  the  writers  find 
that  much  of  their  life  goes  here,  in  the  taverns 
and  coffee-houses  round  about.  The  British 
Museum  is  in  Bloomsbury,  and  students  take 
lodgings  in  the  old  squares  and  in  the  narrow 
streets  that  run  up  to  the  Gray's  Inn  Road. 
The  Charing  Cross  Road  is  full  of  bookshops 
where  all,  when  they  can  afford  it,  buy.  Soho  is 
full  of  restaurants  where  all,  when  they  can 
afford  it,  dine.  And  Chelsea,  dotted  with 
groups  of  studios,  full  of  small  streets,  and  cheap 
lodgings,  is  alive  with  artists  and  writers,  and 
rich  with  memories  of  both. 


AN 

ARRIVAL 
IN 
BOHEMIA 


AN   ARRIVAL  IN   BOHEMIA 

I  HAD  hesitated  before  coming  fairly  into 
Bohemia,  and  lived  for  some  time  in  the 
house  of  relations  a  little  way  out  of 
London,  spending  all  my  days  in  town, 
often,  after  a  talking  party  in  a  Bloomsbury  flat 
or  a  Fleet  Street  tavern,  missing  the  last  train 
out  at  night  and  being  compelled  to  walk  home 
in  the  early  morning.  Would  I  were  as  ready 
for  such  walks  now.  Why  then,  for  the  sake  of 
one  more  half  hour  of  laugh  and  talk  and  song, 
the  miles  of  lonely  trudge  seemed  nothing,  and 
all  the  roads  were  lit  with  lamps  of  poetry  and 
laughter.  Down  Whitehall  I  would  walk  to 
Westminster,  where  I  would  sometimes  turn 
into  a  little  side  street  in  the  island  of  quiet  that 
lies  behind  the  Abbey,  and  glance  at  the  win- 
dows of  a  house  where  a  poet  lived  whose  works 
were  often  in  my  pocket,  to  see  if  the  great  man 
were  yet  abed,  and,  if  the  light  still  glowed  be- 
hind the  blind,  to  wait  a  little  in  the  roadway, 
and  dream  of  the  rich  talk  that  might  be  pass- 
ing, or  picture  him  at  work,  or  reading,  or  per- 
haps turning  over  the  old  prints  I  knew  he 
loved. 

IS 


i6  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

Then  on,  along  the  Embankment,  past  the 
grey  mass  of  the  Tate  Gallery,  past  the  bridges, 
looking  out  over  the  broad  river,  now  silver 
speckled  in  the  moonlight,  now  dark,  with 
bright  shafts  of  light  across  the  water  and  sparks 
of  red  and  green  from  the  lanterns  on  the  boats. 
When  a  tug,  with  a  train  of  barges,  swept  from 
under  a  bridge  and  brought  me  the  invariable, 
unaccountable  shiver  with  the  cold  noise  of  the 
waters  parted  by  her  bows,  I  would  lean  on  the 
parapet  and  watch,  and  catch  a  sight  of  a  dark 
figure  silent  upon  her,  and  wonder  what  it 
would  be  like  to  spend  all  my  days  eternally 
passing  up  and  down  the  river,  seeing  ships  and 
men,  and  knowing  no  hours  but  the  tides,  until 
her  lights  would  vanish  round  a  bend,  and  leave 
the  river  as  before,  moving  on  past  the  still 
lamps  on  either  side, 

I  would  walk  on  past  Chelsea  Bridge,  under 
the  trees  of  Cheyne  Walk,  thinking,  with  heart 
uplifted  by  the  unusual  wine,  and  my  own 
youth,  of  the  great  men  who  had  lived  there, 
and  wondering  if  Don  Saltero's  still  knew  the 
ghosts  of  Addison  and  Steele — and  then  I  would 
laugh  at  myself,  and  sing  a  snatch  of  a  song  that 
the  evening  had  brought  me,  or  perhaps  be  led 
suddenly  to  simple  matters  by  the  sight  of  the 
bright  glow  of  light  about  the  cofifee-stall,  for 
whose  sake  I  came  this  way,  instead  of  crossing 
the  river  by  Westminster  or  Vauxhall  Bridge. 


THE  COFFEE  STALL 


AN   ARRIVAL   IN   BOHEMIA  17 

There  is  something  gypsyish  about  coffee- 
stalls,  something  very  delightful.  Since  those 
days  I  have  known  many:  there  is  one  by  Ken- 
sington Church,  where  I  have  often  bought  a 
cup  of  coffee  in  the  morning  hours,  to  drink  on 
the  paupers'  bench  along  the  railings;  there  is 
another  by  Notting  Hill  Gate,  and  another  in 
Sloane  Square,  where  we  used  to  take  late  sup- 
pers after  plays  at  the  Court  Theatre;  but  there 
is  none  I  have  loved  so  well  as  this  small  untidy 
box  on  the  Embankment.  That  was  a  joyous 
night  when  for  the  first  time  the  keeper  of  the 
stall  recognised  my  face  and  honoured  me  with 
talk  as  a  regular  customer.  More  famous  men 
have  seldom  made  me  prouder.  It  meant  some- 
thing, this  vanity  of  being  able  to  add  "  Evening, 
Bill!  "  to  my  order  for  coffee  and  cake.  Coffee 
and  cake  cost  a  penny  each  and  are  very  good. 
The  coffee  is  not  too  hot  to  drink,  and  the  cake 
would  satisfy  an  ogre.  I  used  to  spend  a  happy 
twenty  minutes  among  the  loafers  by  the  stall. 
There  were  several  soldiers  sometimes,  and  one 
or  two  untidy  women,  and  almost  every  night 
a  very  small,  very  old  man  with  a  broad  shoulder 
to  him,  and  a  kindly  eye.  The  younger  men 
chaffed  him,  and  the  women  would  laughingly 
offer  to  kiss  him,  but  the  older  men,  who  knew 
his  history,  were  gentler,  and  often  paid  for  his 
cake  and  coffee,  or  gave  him  the  luxury  of  a 
hard-boiled  egg.    He  had  once  owned  half  the 


i8  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

boats  on  the  reach,  and  been  a  boxer  in  his  day. 
I  believe  now  that  he  is  dead.  There  were 
others,  too,  and  one,  with  long  black  hair  and 
very  large  eyes  set  wide  apart,  attracted  mc 
strangely,  as  he  stood  there,  laughing  and  talk- 
ing scornfully  and  freely  with  the  rest.  One 
evening  he  walked  over  the  bridge  after  leaving 
the  stall,  and  I,  eager  to  know  him,  left  my 
coffee  untasted,  and  caught  him  up,  and  said 
something  or  other,  to  which  he  replied.  He 
adjusted  his  strides  to  mine,  and  walked  on  with 
me  towards  Clapham.  Presently  I  told  him  my 
name  and  asked  for  his.  He  stopped  under  a 
lamppost  and  looked  at  me.  "  I  am  an  artist," 
said  he,  "  who  does  not  paint,  and  a  famous  man 
without  a  name."  Then,  angry  perhaps  at  my 
puzzled  young  face,  he  swung  off  without  say- 
ing good-night  into  one  of  the  side  streets.  I 
have  often  wondered  who  and  what  he  was, 
and  have  laughed  a  little  sadly  to  think  how 
characteristic  he  was  of  the  life  I  was  to  learn. 
How  many  artists  there  are  who  do  not  paint; 
how  many  a  man  without  a  name,  famous  and 
great  within  his  own  four  walls!  He  avoided 
me  after  that,  and  I  was  too  shy  ever  to  question 
him  again. 

Often  the  dawn  was  in  the  sky  before  I  left 
the  coffee-stall  and  crossed  the  river,  and  then 
the  grey,  pale  mist  with  the  faint  lights  in  it, 
and   the   mysterious   ghosts   of   chimneys   and 


AN  ARRIVAL   IN   BOHEMIA  19 

bridges,  looming  far  away,  seemed  the  most 
beautiful  thing  in  life,  one  of  those  promises 
that  are  fairer  than  reality.  It  was  easy  to  be 
a  poet,  gazing  into  that  dream  that  hung  over 
the  river ;  easy  to  be  a  painter,  with  that  delicate 
picture  in  my  eyes.  Sometimes,  in  the  middle 
of  the  bridge  I  choked  in  my  throat,  and 
walked  on  as  fast  as  I  could,  with  my  eyes 
straight  before  me,  that  I  might  leave  it,  before 
spoiling  that  beautiful  vision  by  another  even  in 
a  little  less  perfect. 

The  rest  of  the  journey  lay  between  red  brick 
houses,  duteously  asleep ;  ugly  flats,  ugly  villas, 
as  like  to  each  other  as  the  sheets  from  a  print- 
ing press,  lined  the  roads,  until  my  eyes  were 
rested  from  their  ugliness  by  a  mile  and  a  half 
of  green  and  sparsely  wooded  common  land, 
sometimes  young  and  almost  charming  on  a 
dewy  morning,  sometimes  old,  ragged,  and 
miserable  in  rain.  Then  I  had  to  turn  once 
more  into  the  wilderness  of  brick,  through 
which  I  passed  to  the  ugliest  and  most  abomina- 
ble of  London's  unpleasing  suburbs. 

I  do  not  know  quite  what  it  is  that  leads 
artists  and  writers  and  others  whose  lives  are 
not  cut  to  the  regular  pattern,  to  leave  their 
homes,  or  the  existences  arranged  for  them  by 
their  relations,  for  a  life  that  is  seldom  as  com- 
fortable, scarcely  ever  as  healthful,  and  nearly 
always  more  precarious.     It  is  difficult  not  to 


20  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

believe  that  the  varying  reasons  are  one  in 
essence  as  they  are  one  in  effect,  but  I  cannot 
find  fewer  than  three  examples,  if  all  cases  are 
to  be  illustrated. 

There  is  young  Mr.  William  Hazlitt,  after 
being  allowed  to  spend  eight  years  doing  little 
but  walking  and  thinking,  suddenly  returns  to 
his  childhood's  plan  of  becoming  an  artist, 
works  like  mad,  gets  a  commission  to  copy 
Titians  in  the  Louvre,  lives  hugger-mugger  for 
four  months  in  Paris,  and  returns  to  spend  three 
years  tramping  the  North  of  England  as  an 
itinerant  portrait  painter.  De  Quincey,  on  the 
other  hand,  walks  out  from  his  school  gates, 
with  twelve  guineas  (ten  borrowed)  in  his 
pockets,  to  his  adventurous  vagabondage  on  the 
Welsh  hills,  for  no  more  urgent  reason  than  that 
his  guardians'  ideas  do  not  jump  with  his  in  the 
matter  of  sending  him  instantly  to  college. 
These  are  the  men  marked  out  early  for  art  or 
literature.  The  one  sets  out  because  his  old  ones 
are  not  in  sufficient  subservience  to  him,  the 
other  because  they  think  him  a  genius  and  allow 
him  to  do  what  he  wants.  In  both  of  these  cases 
the  essential  reason  seems  to  be  that  when  either 
wants  anything  he  wants  it  pretty  badly.  But 
besides  these  there  are  the  men  who,  like 
Goldsmith,  take  up  an  art  by  accident  or 
necessity  in  later  years,  and  more  often  than 
not  are  sent  into  the  world  because  they  are 


AN  ARRIVAL   IN   BOHEMIA         21 

failures  at  home,  and  given  their  fifty  guineas 
to  clear  out  by  an  Uncle  Contarine  who  wishes 
to  relieve  his  brother's  or  sister's  anxieties  rather 
than  those  of  his  nephew. 

Things  were  so  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  they 
are  still  the  same.  I  was  very  young,  and  mad 
to  be  a  Villon,  hungry  to  have  a  life  of  my  own. 


My  wishes  told  my  conscience  twenty  times  a 
day  that  my  work  (my  work  I)  could  but  ill 
progress  in  a  house  where  several  bustling  lives 
were  vividly  lived  in  directions  opposite  to  my 
own  desires.  I  think  my  relations  must  have 
been  quite  as  anxious  to  get  rid  of  me.  At  last 
I  spent  a  morning  prowling  round  Chelsea,  and 


22  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

found  an  empty  room  with  four  windows  all  in 
good  condition,  and  a  water  supply  two  floors 
below,  at  a  rent  of  a  few  shillings  a  week.  I 
paid  for  a  week  in  advance  and  went  home,  or- 
dering a  grocer's  van  to  call  after  lunch.  The 
van  drew  up  before  the  door.  I  announced  its 
meaning,  packed  all  my  books  into  it,  a  railway 
rug,  a  bundle  of  clothes  and  my  one  large  chair, 
said  good-bye  to  my  relations,  and  then,  after 
lighting  my  clay  pipe,  and  seating  myself  com- 
placently on  the  tailboard,  gave  the  order  to 
start.  I  was  as  Columbus  setting  forth  to  a  New 
World,  a  gypsy  striking  his  tent  for  unknown 
woods;  I  felt  as  if  I  had  been  a  wanderer  in  a 
caravan  from  my  childhood  as  I  loosened  my 
coat,  opened  one  or  two  more  buttons  in  the  flan- 
nel shirt  that  I  wore  open  at  the  neck,  and  saw 
the  red  brick  houses  slipping  slowly  away 
behind  me.  The  pride  of  it,  to  be  sitting  behind 
a  van  that  I  had  hired  myself;  to  carry  my  own 
belongings  to  a  place  of  my  own  choosing;  to 
be  absolutely  a  free  man,  whose  most  distant  de- 
sires seemed  instantly  attainable.  I  have  never 
known  another  afternoon  like  that. 

It  was  very  warm,  and  the  bushes  in  the  tiny 
suburban  gardens  were  grey  with  dust,  and  dust 
clouds  blew  up  from  the  road,  and  circled  about 
the  back  of  the  van,  and  settled  on  my  face  and 
in  my  nostrils  as  I  broadened  my  chest  and 
snuffed  the  air  of  independence.    As  we  came 


AN   ARRIVAL   IN   BOHEMIA  23 

through  the  busier  thoroughfares,  errand  boys, 
and  sometimes  even  loafers,  who  should  have 
had  a  greater  sympathy  with  me,  jeered  at  my 
pipe  and  my  clothes,  doubtless  encouraged  by 
the  boy  who  sat  in  front  and  drove,  and  was 
(I  am  sure  of  it)  carrying  on  a  winking  con- 
versation. But  I  minded  them  no  more  than  the 
dust.  For  was  I  not  now  a  free  Bohemian,  on 
my  way  to  the  haunts  of  Savage,  and  Goldsmith, 
and  Rossetti,  and  Lamb,  and  Whistler,  and 
Steele,  and  Carlyle,  and  all  the  others  whose 
names  and  histories  I  knew  far  better  than  their 
works  I  No,  I  will  not  do  myself  that  injustice; 
I  knew  nothing  of  Carlyle's  life,  but  his  "  Sartor 
Resartus  "  was  my  Bible ;  I  knew  little  of  Lamb, 
but  I  had  had  "  Elia "  bound  privily  in  the 
covers  of  a  school  Caesar,  to  lessen  the  tedium  of 
well-hated  Latin  lessons  I  remember  being 
called  upon  to  construe,  and,  with  unthinking 
enjoyment,  reciting  aloud  to  an  astonished  class 
and  master  the  praises  of  Roast  Pork.  I  knew 
the  works  of  these  two  better  than  their  lives. 
And  Carlyle  had  lived  in  Chelsea,  whither  my 
grocer's  van  of  happiness  was  threading  the 
suburban  streets,  and  Lamb  had  lived  in  a  court 
only  a  stone's  throw  from  the  office  of  the  little 
newspaper  whose  payments  for  my  juvenile 
essays  had  helped  my  ambition  to  o'erleap  the 
Thames  and  find  a  lodging  for  itself. 

Over    the    Albert    Bridge    we    moved    as 


24  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

leisurely  as  the  old  horse  chose  to  walk  in  the 
August  sun,  and  then  a  little  way  to  the  left,  and 
up  to  the  King's  Road,  by  way  of  Cheyne  Walk 
and  Bramerton  Street,  past  the  very  house  of 
Carlyle,  and  so  near  Leigh  Hunt's  old  home 
that  I  could  have  changed  the  time  of  day  with 
him  had  his  kindly  ghost  been  leaning  from  a 
window.  And  I  thought  of  these  men  as  I  sat, 
placid  and  drunk  with  pride,  on  the  tailboard 
of  the  van.  Pipe  after  pipe  I  smoked,  and  the 
floating  blue  clouds  hung  peacefully  in  the  air 
behind  me,  like  the  rings  in  the  water  made  by 
a  steady  oarsman.  Their  frequency  was  the 
only  circumstance  that  betrayed  my  nervousness. 

We  turned  into  the  King's  Road,  that  was 
made  to  save  King  Charles's  coach  horses  when 
he  drove  to  see  Nell  Gwynne.  We  followed  it 
to  the  World's  End,  where  I  thought  of  Con- 
greve's  "  Love  for  Love,"  and  having  the  book 
with  me  in  the  van,  I  glanced,  for  pleasure,  in 
the  black  print,  though  I  knew  the  thing  by 
heart,  to  the  charming  scene  where  Mrs.  Frail 
and  Mrs.  Foresight  banter  each  other  on  their 
indiscretions;  you  remember:  Mrs.  Foresight 
taunts  her  sister  with  driving  round  Covent 
Garden  in  a  hackney  coach,  alone,  with  a  man, 
and  adds  that  it  is  a  reflection  on  her  own  fair 
modesty,  whereupon  sprightly  Mrs.  Frail  re- 
torts : 

"  Pooh  I  here's  a  clutter,  why  should  it  reflect 


AN  ARRIVAL   IN   BOHEMIA         25 

upon  you?  I  don't  doubt  but  that  you  have 
thought  yourself  happy  in  a  hackney  coach  be- 
fore now.  If  I  had  gone  to  Knightsbridge,  or 
to  Chelsea,  or  to  Spring  Gardens,  or  Barn  Elms 
with  a  man  alone,  something  might  have  been 
said." 

"Why,  was  I  ever  in  any  of  these  places? 
What  do  you  mean,  sister?  " 

"  Was  I  ?    What  do  you  mean?  " 

"  You  have  been  at  a  worse  place?  " 

"  I  at  a  worse  place,  and  with  a  man ! " 

"  I  suppose  you  would  not  go  alone  to  the 
World's  End?" 

"The  World's  End?  What,  do  you  mean 
to  banter  me?  " 

"  Poor  Innocent  1  You  don't  know  that  there 
is  a  place  called  the  World's  End?  I'll  swear 
you  can  keep  your  countenance  purely;  you'd 
make  an  admirable  player.  .  .  .  But  look 
you  here,  now — ^Where  did  you  lose  this  gold 
bodkin? — Oh,  sister,  sister!" 

"My  bodkin?" 

"  Nay,  'tis  yours ;  look  at  it." 

"Well,  if  you  go  to  that,  where  did  you  find 
this  bodkin?  Oh,  sister,  sister — sister  every 
way." 

Was  ever  a  more  admirable  little  scene  to 
read  upon  the  tailboard  of  a  van  on  a  hot  sum- 
mer's day?  I  made  my  boy  pull  up  and  go  in 
at  the  tavern  and  bring  out  a  couple  of  pints  of 


26  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

ale,  old  ale,  one  for  me,  for  once  his  lord  and 
my  own  master,  and  one  for  him  to  drink  my 
health  in,  and  the  health  of  William  Congreve, 
who  doubtless  drank  here  many  years  ago,  when 
green  fields  spread  between  here  and  West- 
minster, and  this  was  a  little  inn,  a  naughty  little 
inn,  where  gay  young  men  brought  gay  young 
women  to  talk  private  business  in  the  country. 
I  saw  them  sitting  in  twos  outside  the  tavern 
with  a  bottle  of  wine  before  them  on  a  trestle- 
board,  and  a  pair  of  glasses,  or  perhaps  one  be- 
tween them,  graven  with  the  portrait  of  a  tall 
ship,  or  a  motto  of  love  and  good  fellowship. 

And  then,  when  the  ale  was  done,  we  went 
on,  and  I  forgot  old  Chelsea,  the  riverside  vil- 
lage in  the  fields,  to  think  upon  how  I  was  to 
spend  the  night  in  this  new  Chelsea,  haunted,  it 
was  true,  by  the  ghosts  of  winebibbers  and 
painters  and  poets,  but,  to  me  who  was  to  live 
in  it,  suddenly  become  as  frightening  and  as 
solitary  as  an  undiscovered  land. 

In  a  street  of  grey  houses  we  stopped  at  a 
corner  where  an  alley  turned  aside ;  we  stopped 
at  the  corner  house,  which  was  a  greengrocer's 
shop.  Slipping  down  from  the  tailboard  of  the 
van,  I  looked  up  at  the  desolate,  curtainless  win- 
dows of  the  top  floor  that  showed  where  I  was 
to  sleep. 

The  landlord  was  an  observant,  uncomfort- 
able wretch,  who  ran  the  shop  on  the  ground 


AN   ARRIVAL   IN   BOHEMIA  27 

floor,  though  in  no  way  qualified  for  a  green- 
grocer, a  calling  that  demands  something  more 
of  stoutness  and  juiciness  of  nature  than  ever  he 
could  show.  He  watched  with  his  fingers  in 
the  pockets  of  his  lean  waistcoat  the  unloading 
of  my  van,  without  offering  to  help  us,  and  when 
my  vassal  and  I  had  carried  the  things  up  into 
the  bare  top  room,  he  came  impertinently  in, 
and  demanded  "  if  this  were  all  I  had  brought? 
Where  was  my  furniture?  He  was  for  none  of 
your  carpet-bag  lodgers." 

"  I  am  just  going  out  to  get  my  furniture,"  I 
replied,  and,  as  if  by  accident,  let  him  see  my 
one  gold  piece,  while  from  another  pocket  I 
paid  the  boy  the  seven  shillings  agreed  upon  as 
the  hire  of  the  van,  with  an  extra  shilling 
for  himself.  He  watched  unimpressed,  till  I 
moved  towards  the  door  with  such  an  air  that 
he  withdrew  with  a  little  more  deference, 
though  he  chose  to  descend  the  stairs  before  me. 
I  hated  him.  His  manner  had  almost  been  a 
damper  on  my  happiness. 

From  the  nearest  grocer's  shop  I  bought  three 
shillings'  worth  of  indifferently  clean  packing- 
cases,  and  paid  an  extra  sixpence  to  have  them 
taken  home  at  once.  I  went  on  along  the  Ful- 
ham  Road,  buying  apples,  and  cheese,  and 
bread,  and  beer,  till  my  pockets  and  arms  were 
laden  with  as  much  as  they  could  carry.  When 
I  returned,  the  boxes  had  been  delivered,  and 


28  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

my  landlord  was  standing  indignant  in  the 
middle  of  my  room. 

"You   must   understand "   he   began   at 

once. 

My  temper  was  up.  "  I  do,"  I  replied. 
"  Have  you  the  key  of  the  door?  Thank  you. 
Good-night,"  and  smiled  happily  to  myself  as 
the  shuffling  footsteps  of  that  mean-spirited 
greengrocer  died  away  down  the  stairs. 

The  lodging  was  a  large  square  place,  and  did 
not  (I  admit  it  now,  though  I  would  have  shot 
myself  for  the  thought  then)  look  very  cheerful. 
Bare  and  irregular  boards  made  its  floor;  its 
walls  were  dull  grey-green;  my  books  were 
piled  in  a  cruelly  careless  heap  in  one  corner, 
my  purchases  in  another;  the  pile  of  packing 
cases  in  the  middle  made  it  appear  the  very 
lumber  room  it  was. 

The  boxes  were  soon  arranged  into  a  table  and 
chairs.  Two,  placed  one  above  the  other  on 
their  sides,  served  for  a  cupboard.  Three  set 
end  to  end  made  an  admirable  bed.  Indeed,  my 
railway  rug  gave  it  an  air  of  comfort,  even  of 
opulence,  spread  carefully  over  the  top.  The 
cheese  was  good,  and  also  the  beer,  but  I  had 
forgotten  to  buy  candles,  and  it  was  growing 
dark  before  that  first  untidy  supper  was  finished. 
So  I  placed  a  packing-case  chair  by  the  open 
window,  and  dipped  through  a  volume  of 
poetry,  an  anthology  of  English  ballads,  that 


AN  ARRIVAL   IN  BOHEMIA         29 

had  been  marked  at  ninepence  on  an  open  book- 
stall in  the  Charing  Cross  Road. 

But  I  did  not  read  much.  The  sweet  sum- 
mer air,  cool  in  the  evening,  seemed  to  blow  a 
kiss  of  promise  on  my  forehead.  The  light  was 
dying.  I  listened  for  the  hoot  of  a  steamer  on 
the  river,  or  the  bells  of  London  churches;  I 
heard  with  elation  the  feet  of  passengers,  whom 
I  could  see  but  dimly,  beating  on  the  pavement 
far  below.  A  rough  voice  was  scolding  in  the 
room  under  mine,  and  someone  was  singing  a 
song.  Now  and  again  I  looked  at  the  poetry, 
though  it  was  really  too  dark  to  see,  and  a  thou- 
sand hopes  and  fears  flitting  across  the  page 
carried  me  out  of  myself,  but  not  so  far  that  I 
did  not  know  that  this  was  my  first  night  of  free- 
dom, that  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  was  alone 
in  a  room  of  my  own,  free  to  live  for  poetry,  for 
philosophy,  for  all  the  things  that  seemed  then 
to  matter  more  than  life  itself.  I  thought  of 
Crabbe  coming  to  London  with  three  pounds  in 
his  pockets,  and  a  volume  of  poems;  I  thought 
of  Chatterton,  and  laughed  at  myself,  but  was 
quite  a  little  pleased  at  the  thought.  Brave 
dreams  flooded  my  mind,  and  I  sat  content  long 
after  it  was  dusk  and  smoked,  and  sent  with 
infinite  enjoyment  puffs  of  pale  smoke  out  into 
the  night.  I  did  not  go  to  bed  at  all,  but  fell 
asleep  leaning  on  the  window  sill,  to  wake  with 
a  cold  in  my  head. 


OLD  AND  NEW  CHELSEA 


OLD  AND  NEW  CHELSEA 


CHELSEA  has  waged  more  than  a 
hundred  years'  war  with  the  common 
sense  of  the  multitude.  Long  before 
Leigh  Hunt  settled  with  his  odd 
household  in  Upper  Cheyne  Row,  with  Carlyle 
for  a  neighbour,  Chelsea  had  begun  to  deserve 
its  reputation  as  a  battlefield  and  bivouacking 
ground  for  art  and  literature. 

Somewhere  about  1690  an  inventive  barber 
and  ex-servant  called  Salter,  who  renamed  him- 
self Don  Saltero,  with  an  eye  to  trade,  set  up  at 
No.  18  Cheyne  Walk  a  coffee-house  and  mad 
museum.  Those  who  wished  for  coffee  visited 
the  museum,  and  those  who  came  to  view  the 
curiosities — ^which  were  many  and  various, 
including  a  wild  man  of  the  woods,  and  the 
tobacco  pipe  of  the  Emperor  of  Morocco — re- 
freshed their  minds  with  coffee.  Some  trades 
seem  invented  to  provide  the  material  of  de- 
lightful literature;  barbers  especially  are  men 
whom  the  pen  does  but  tickle  to  caress.  Don 
Quixote  met  such  an  one  in  the  adventure  of  the 

33 


34  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

helmet;  Shibli  Bagarag  of  Shiraz,  the  shaver 
of  Shagpat,  the  son  of  Shimpoor,  the  son  of 
Shoolpi,  the  son  of  ShuUum,  was  a  second ;  and 
Don  Saltero  seems  to  have  been  just  such  an- 
other. Steele  wrote  a  laughing,  friendly  por- 
trait of  him  in  the  Tatler: 

"When  I  came  into  the  Coffee  House  I  had 
no  time  to  salute  the  Company  before  my  Eye 
was  taken  by  ten  thousand  Gimcracks  round  the 
Room,  and  on  the  Ceiling.  When  my  first  as- 
tonishment was  over  comes  to  me  a  Sage  of  a 
thin  and  meagre  Countenance;  which  aspect 
made  me  doubt  whether  Reading  or  Fretting 
had  made  him  so  philosophick.  But  I  very  soon 
perceived  him  to  be  of  that  Sect  which  the  An- 
cients called  Ginquistae;  in  our  Language 
Tooth  Drawers.  I  immediately  had  a  respect 
for  the  man;  for  these  practical  philosophers  go 
upon  a  very  rational  Hypothesis,  not  to  cure  but 
to  take  away  the  Part  affected.  My  Love  of 
Mankind  made  me  very  benevolent  to  Mr. 
Salter,  for  such  is  the  name  of  this  Eminent 
Barber  and  Antiquary." 

Steele  was  not  the  only  man  of  letters  who 
loved  the  place.  Doctor  Tobias  Smollett,  when 
he  lived  in  Chelsea,  used  to  stroll  in  here  of  an 
afternoon.  On  Sundays  he  was  busy  feeding 
poor  authors  at  his  own  house  on  "  beef,  pud- 
ding, and  potatoes,  port,  punch,  and  Calvert's 
Entire  butt-beer,"  but  on  week  days  he  went 


OLD  AND  NEW   CHELSEA  35 

often  to  Don  Saltero's,  where  he  may  have  seen 
Benjamin  Franklin,  a  journeyman  printer,  duti- 
fully examining  the  place  as  one  of  the  London 
sights.  Indeed,  against  the  inexcusable  auto- 
biography of  that  austere,  correct  fellow  we 
must  set  the  fact  of  his  swim  back  from  Chelsea 
down  to  Blackf riars.  We  can  forgive  him  much 
righteousness  for  that.  But  Steele's  is  the  pleas- 
antest  memory  of  the  old  museum.  I  think  of 
the  meagre  barber,  proud  of  his  literary  patrons, 
serving  coffee  to  them  in  the  room  decorated 
with  gimcracks  on  ceiling,  walls,  and  floor;  but 
I  should  have  loved  above  all  to  see  Steele  swing 
in,  carelessly  dressed,  with  his  whole  face  smil- 
ing as  he  showed  Mr.  Salter  his  little  advertise- 
ment in  the  lazy  pages  of  the  Tatler,  fresh  and 
damp  from  the  press. 

Though  No.  18  has  long  been  a  private  house, 
Chelsea  still  knows  such  characters  as  the  man 
who  made  it  famous.  I  lost  sight  of  one  of  them 
only  a  year  or  two  ago.  I  forget  his  name,  but  he 
called  himself  the  "  P.  B.,"  which  letters  stood 
for  "  The  Perfect  Bohemian."  He  wrote  most 
abominably  bad  verses,  and  kept  a  snug  little 
restaurant  in  the  Fulham  Road,  a  happy  little 
feeding  house  after  the  old  style,  now,  alasl 
fallen  into  a  more  sedate  proprietorship.  Half 
a  dozen  of  us  used  to  go  there  at  one  time,  and 
drank  coffee  and  ate  fruit  stewed  by  the  poet 
himself.    We  sat  on  summer  evenings  in  a  small 


36  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

partly  roofed  yard  behind  the  house.  Creepers 
hung  long  trails  with  fluttering  leaves  over  green 
painted  tables,  and,  as  dark  came  on,  the  P.B. 
would  light  Japanese  lanterns  that  swung  among 
the  foliage,  and  then,  sitting  on  a  table,  would 
read  his  poetry  aloud  to  his  customers.  The 
restaurant  did  not  pay  better  than  was  to  be 
expected,  and  the  P.B.  became  an  artist's  model. 
He  was  fine-looking,  with  curly  hair,  dark  eyes, 
a  high  brow,  and  the  same  meagreness  about  his 
face  that  Steele  noticed  in  the  ingenious  barber. 
I  hope  he  made  a  fortune  as  a  model.  He  must 
have  been  an  entertaining  sitter. 

I  had  been  looking  for  a  picture  of  old  irregu- 
lar family  life  when  I  came  on  Carlyle's  de- 
scription of  the  Hunts.  It  is  curious  how  slowly 
Bohemia  changes.  The  last  fifty  years,  that 
have  altered  almost  everything  else,  have  left 
the  little  Bohemian  family  life  that  there  is  very 
like  this,  at  any  rate  in  essentials: 

"  Hunt's  household.  Nondescript!  Un- 
utterable I  Mrs.  Hunt  asleep  on  cushions;  four 
or  five  beautiful,  strange,  gypsy-looking  chil- 
dren running  about  in  undress,  whom  the  lady 
ordered  to  get  us  tea.  The  eldest  boy,  Percy — 
a  sallow  black-haired  youth  of  sixteen,  with  a 
kind  of  dark  cotton  nightgown  on — ^went  whirl- 
ing about  like  a  familiar,  pervading  everything; 
an  indescribable  dreamlike  household.  .  .  . 
Hunt's  house  excels  all  you  have  ever  heard  of 


OLD  AND  NEW   CHELSEA  37 

.  .  .  a  poetical  Tinkerdom,  without  parallel 
even  in  literature.  In  his  family  room,  where 
are  a  sickly  large  wife  and  a  whole  school  of 
well-conditioned  wild  children,  you  will  find 
half  a  dozen  old  rickety  chairs  gathered  from 
half  a  dozen  different  hucksters,  and  all  seem- 
ing engaged,  and  just  pausing,  in  a  violent  horn- 
pipe. On  these  and  round  them  and  over  the 
dusty  table  and  ragged  carpets  lie  all  kinds  of 
litter — books,  paper,  eggshells,  and,  last  night 
when  I  was  there,  the  torn  half  of  a  half-quar- 
tern loaf.  His  own  room  above  stairs,  into 
which  alone  I  strive  to  enter,  he  keeps  cleaner. 
It  has  only  two  chairs,  a  book-case  and  a  writing 
table;  yet  the  noble  Hunt  receives  you  in  his 
Tinkerdom  in  the  spirit  of  a  King,  apologises 
for  nothing,  places  you  in  the  best  seat,  takes  a 
window  sill  himself  if  there  is  no  other,  and 
then,  folding  closer  his  loose  flowing  "  muslin 
cloud  "  of  a  printed  nightgown,  in  which  he  al- 
ways writes,  commences  the  liveliest  dialogue 
on  philosophy  and  the  prospects  of  man  (who  is 
to  be  beyond  measure  happy  yet),  which  again 
he  will  courteously  terminate  the  moment  you 
are  bound  to  go." 

As  for  Carlyle's  own  house,  just  round  the 
corner,  he  left  a  description  of  that,  too,  in  a 
letter  to  his  wife,  written  to  her  when  he  took  it. 

"...  on  the  whole  a  most  massive,  roomy, 
sufficient  old  house,  with  places,  for  example. 


134064 


38  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

to  hang,  say,  three  dozen  hats  or  cloaks  on,  and 
as  many  curious  and  queer  old  presses  and 
shelved  closets  (all  tight  and  well  painted  in 
their  way)  as  would  satisfy  the  most  covetous 
Goody:  rent  thirty-five  pounds.  .  .  .  We  lie 
safe  at  a  bend  of  the  river,  away  from  all  the 
great  roads,  have  air  and  quiet  hardly  inferior 
to  Craigenputtock,  an  outlook  from  the  back 
windows  into  more  leafy  regions,  with  here 
and  there  a  red  high-peaked  old  roof  looking 
through,  and  see  nothing  of  London  except  by 
day  the  summits  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  and 
Westminster  Abbey,  and  by  night  the  gleam  of 
the  great  Babylon,  affronting  the  peaceful  skies. 
The  house  itself  is  probably  the  best  we  have 
ever  lived  in — a  right  old  strong  roomy  brick 
house  built  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  and  likely  to  see  three  races  of  these  modern 
fashionables  come  down." 

There  it  stands  still,  and  in  a  way  to  fulfil  the 
prophecy.  The  houses  have  closed  in  about  its 
quiet  street.  The  little  villagery  of  Chelsea  has 
been  engulfed  in  the  lava  stream  of  new  cheap 
buildings.  The  King's  Road  thunders  with 
motor  'buses  and  steam  vans,  but  here  in  this 
quiet  Cheyne  Row  the  sun  yet  falls  as  peace- 
fully as  ever  on  the  row  of  trees  along  the  pave- 
ment, and,  over  the  way,  on  the  stiff  front  of  the 
"  sufficient  old  house,"  in  at  the  windows  where 
Carlyle  sat  and  smoked  long  pipes  with  Tenny- 


OLD  AND   NEW  CHELSEA 

son,  and  talked  to  "  my  old 
friend  Fitzgerald,  who 
might  have  spent  his  time 
to  much  better  purpose  than 
in  busying  himself  with  the 
verses  of  that  old  Mahome- 
tan blackguard,"  Omar 
Khayyam.    They    tell    me 
that    upstairs    is    still    the 
double-walled  room  where 
so  many  groans  were  hurled 
at  unnecessary   noises   and 
the  evils  of  digestion 
where,   in  spite  of   all,  so 
many  great  books  came 
alive  on  the  paper.    There 
is  a  medallion  on  the  front 
of  the  house,   and  visitors 
are  allowed  to  nose  about 
inside.     But   it   is 
better  to  forget  the 
visitors,    as  you 
look     down     that 
shady  street  on  a 
summer's  day,  and 
to   think  only   of 
the   old   poet-phi- 
losopher who  was 
so  happy  there  and 
so  miserable,  and 


39 


40  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

loved  so  well  the  river  that  flows  stately  past 
the  foot  of  the  street.  There,  looking  out  over 
the  water,  from  the  narrow  gardens  along 
Cheyne  Walk,  you  may  see  his  statue,  the  patron 
saint  of  so  many  wilfully  bad-tempered  fellows, 
who  cannot,  as  he  could,  vindicate  their  bad- 
temper  by  their  genius. 

The  river  made  Chelsea  the  place  it  is,  a  place 
different  specially  from  every  other  suburb  of 
the  town.  Mr.  G.  K.  Chesterton  says  he  loves 
Battersea,  "  because  it  is  the  only  suburb  that  re- 
tains a  local  patriotism."  Chelsea  has  a  local 
patriotism,  too,  but  of  another  kind,  the  patriot- 
ism of  members  of  the  foreign  legion.  Chelsea 
does  not  breed  artists,  she  adopts  them;  but  they 
would  die  for  her.  But  apart  from  this  patriot- 
ism, she  has  a  local  atmosphere  that  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  artists,  the  feeling  of  a  riverside 
village  that  not  even  the  rival  highway  of  the 
King's  Road  has  been  able  to  destroy.  Chelsea 
was  once  such  a  place  for  Londoners  as  Chert- 
sey  is  now.  People  came  there  to  be  near  the 
river.  Visitors  to  the  World's  End,  then  the 
limit  of  fashion,  where  gallants  brought  their 
Mrs.  Frails,  came  by  boat.  Big  country  houses 
were  built  round  about.  Sir  Thomas  More's 
house,  where  he  entertained  Holbein  and  the  ob- 
servant Erasmus,  was  built  in  1521  where  Beau- 
fort Street  is  now,  and  had  "  a  pleasant  prospect 
of  the  Thames  and  the  fields  beyond."    And  all 


OLD  AND  NEW  CHELSEA         41 

the  best  memories  of  old  Chelsea  rest  in  the  nar- 
row stately  fronted  houses  along  Cheyne  Walk, 
or  in  the  little  taverns  by  the  riverside,  or  in  the 
narrow  streets  that  run  up  from  the  Embank- 
ment, just  as  the  village  streets  might  have  been 
expected  to  run  up  from  the  banks  of  the  stream 
when,  in  the  old  days,  people  came  here  to 
bathe  and  be  merry  in  the  sunshine. 

Three  of  those  Cheyne  Walk  houses  must  be 
mentioned  here.  In  1849  some  members  of 
the  newly-established  Pre-Raphaelite  Brother- 
hood looked  over  No.  16,  "with  which  they 
were  greatly  taken.  It  is  capable  of  furnishing 
four  good  studios,  with  a  bedroom,  and  a  little 
room  that  would  do  for  a  library,  attached  to 
each.  *  P.  R.  B.'  might  be  written  on  the  door, 
and  stand  for  '  Please  Ring  the  Bell  '  to  the  pro- 
fane. .  .  ."  How  cheerful  that  is  I  But  the 
house  was  not  taken  till  a  dozen  years  after- 
wards, when  Rossetti,  whose  life  had  been 
broken  by  the  death  of  his  wife  nine  months 
before,  took  it  with  Swinburne  and  Meredith. 
In  the  back  garden  he  kept  all  manner  of  strange 
beasts — zebus,  armadillos,  and  the  favourite  of 
all,  the  wombat,  an  animal  almost  canonised  by 
the  Pre-Raphaelites.  "  Do  you  know  the  wom- 
bat at  the  Zoo?  "  asked  Rossetti,  before  he  had 
one  of  his  own,  "  a  delightful  creature,  the  most 
comical  little  beast."  They  used  in  the  early 
days  to  make  pilgrimages  to  Regent's  Park  on 


42  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

purpose  to  see  it,  and  in  Lady  Burne-Jones's  life 
of  her  husband  she  records  how  the  windows  in 
the  Union  at  Oxford,  whitened  while  Morris 
and  Rossetti  and  the  rest  were  decorating,  were 
covered  with  sketches  of  wombats  in  delightful 
poses.  I  wish  I  could  get  a  picture  of  one  to 
make  a  jolly  island  in  the  text  of  this  book. 

Going  west  along  Cheyne  Walk,  past  Oakley 
Street  and  the  statue  of  Carlyle,  past  old  Chelsea 
Church,  we  come  to  Whistler's  lofty  studio- 
house,  a  grey  magnificence  of  which  it  is  impos- 
sible to  tire.  Here  lived  Whistler  in  his  own 
way,  and  flaunted  his  own  way  of  living.  He 
had  some  sport  with  his  life.  There  is  a  tale  told 
of  him  before  he  lived  here,  when  he  had  the 
White  House  in  Tite  Street,  that  is  very  perti- 
nent to  this  book,  and  is  the  more  interesting  in 
that  it  is  the  duplicate  of  one  Sir  Richard  Steele's 
exploits.  Mr.  William  Rossetti  gives  the  story 
in  his  big  book  of  reminiscences,  and  Johnson  in 
almost  the  same  terms  tells  the  same  tale  of 
Steele,  who  is  known  to  have  rented  a  house 
somewhere  along  the  waterside.  Here  is  the 
Steele  story;  the  Whistler  is  exactly  similar,  but 
I  have  not  the  book  in  the  house : 

"  Sir  Richard  Steele  one  day  having  invited 
to  his  house  a  great  number  of  persons  of  the 
first  quality,  they  were  surprised  at  the  number 
of  liveries  which  surrounded  the  table;  and  after 
dinner,  when  wine  and  mirth  had  set  them  free 


7 


ROSSETTI'S  HOUSE  IN  CHJYNE  WALK 


OLD  AND  NEW  CHELSEA         43 

from  the  observations  of  a  rigid  ceremony,  one 
of  them  inquired  of  Sir  Richard  how  such  an 
expensive  train  of  domestics  could  be  consistent 
with  his  fortunes.  Sir  Richard  very  frankly 
confessed  that  they  were  fellows  of  whom  he 
would  willingly  be  rid.  And  then,  being  asked 
why  he  did  not  discharge  them,  declared  that 
they  were  bailiffs,  who  had  introduced  them- 
selves with  an  execution,  and  whom,  since  he 
could  not  send  them  away,  he  had  thought  it 
convenient  to  embellish  with  liveries,  that  they 
might  do  him  credit  while  they  stayed." 

Johnson  does  not  say  whether  it  was  in 
Chelsea  that  this  occurred.  So  it  is  safer,  and  at 
least  as  pleasant,  to  read  Whistler  for  Steele, 
and  imagine  the  dinner  party  in  Tite  Street. 
The  humour  of  it  would  have  delighted  either 
of  these  very  different  men.  Whistler  must  have 
carried  it  off  with  a  superb  nicety,  but  it  is  not 
told  that  his  friends  paid  up,  and  set  him  free, 
as  they  did  for  Dick  Steele.  It  is  possible  he 
would  have  resented  it. 

Further  along  Cheyne  Walk,  beyond  Batter- 
sea  Bridge,  where  the  stately  houses  dwindle 
into  a  regular  little  riverside  street,  with 
cottages,  and  nondescript  shops,  and  nautical 
taverns,  with  old  quays  and  landing  stairs  just 
over  the  way,  is  No.  1 1 8,  a  tiny  red-tiled  house, 
a  little  below  the  level  of  the  street,  set  back 
between   an    inn    and   a   larger  house,  behind 


44  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

faded  wooden  palings,  and  a  few  shrubs.  There 
are  birds'  nests  in  the  creepers  that  cover  the 
walls  and  twist  about  the  windows.  Here 
Turner  lived  under  an  assumed  name  (they 
thought  him  an  old  sea  captain)  and  climbed 
the  roof  to  watch  the  sunsets,  as  a  retired  sailor 
might  watch  for  small  shipping  coming  down 
the  river.  Here  he  died  in  1851,  a  tired  old 
man,  only  a  few  years  after  Ruskin  had  proved 
to  the  world  that  of  all  modern  painters  he  was 
the  greatest  and  least  honoured. 

Now,  in  the  twentieth  century,  the  riverside 
streets  only  live  their  old  lives  in  the  minds  of 
the  young  and  unsuccessful  who  walk  their 
pavements  in  the  summer  evenings.  Those  who 
rent  houses  in  Tite  Street  or  in  Cheyne  Walk 
live  nicely  and  reverently.  They  are  either 
more  respectable  than  Steele  or  Whistler  or 
less  magnificent.  Bohemia  has  moved  a  little 
further  from  the  river.  The  river  has  given 
place  to  the  King's  Road  as  Chelsea's  main 
artery,  and  now  the  old  exuberant  life  is  lived 
not  in  the  solemn  beautiful  houses  by  the  water- 
side, nor  in  the  taverns  by  the  deserted  quays, 
but  in  the  studios  and  squares  and  narrow  streets 
along  the  other  thoroughfare.  There  is  Glebe 
Place,  full  of  studios;  there  is  Bramerton  Street, 
and  Flood  Street,  and  then  there  is  modern  Chel- 
sea, a  long  strip  of  buildings  cut  by  narrow 


OLD  AND  NEW  CHELSEA  45 

streets,  between  the  King's  Road  and  the  Ful- 
ham  Road.  Studios  are  dotted  all  about,  and  at 
least  half  the  ugly,  lovable  little  houses  keep  a 
notice  of  "Apartments  to  Let"  permanently  in 
the  windows,  an  apt  emblem  of  the  continual 
flitting  that  is  charateristic  of  the  life. 

But  there  is  a  time  in  the  evening  when  the 
irregulars  of  these  days  cross  the  King's  Road 
and  unsurp  the  Bohemia  of  the  past.  When  it 
grows  too  dark  for  painters  to  judge  the  colours 
of  their  pictures,  they  flock  out  from  the  studios, 
some  to  go  up  to  Soho  for  dinner,  some  to  stroll 
with  wife  or  friendly  model  in  the  dusk.  The 
favourite  promenade  is  along  Cheyne  Walk, 
where  the  lamps  shining  among  the  leaves  of 
the  trees  cast  wavering  shadows  on  the  pave- 
ments. Only  the  black-and-white  men,  work- 
ing against  time  for  the  weekly  papers,  plug  on 
through  the  dark.  Now  and  again,  walking 
the  streets,  you  may  look  up  at  a  window  and 
see  a  man  busily  drawing,  with  a  shaded  lamp 
throwing  a  bright  light  on  the  Bristol-board 
before  him.  For  myself,  I  soon  discovered  that 
the  dusk  was  meant  for  indolence,  and  always, 
a  little  before  sunset,  threaded  my  way  to  the 
King's  Road,  and  so  to  the  river.  I  would  leave 
the  spider  strength  of  the  Albert  Bridge  behind 
me,  and  stroll  on  past  Battersea  Bridge  to  a 
promontory  of  embankment  just  beyond,  the 
best  of  all  places  for  seeing  the  sunsets  up  the 


46  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

river,  and  the  blue  mists  about  those  four  tall 
chimneys  of  the  electric  generating  station.  I 
used  to  lean  on  the  balustrade  there  and  watch 
the  green  and  golden  glow  fade  away  from 
the  sky  where  those  great  obelisks  towered  up, 
and  think  of  Turner  on  the  roof  of  the  little 
house  close  by;  I  would  watch  the  small  boats 
bobbing  on  their  ropes,  and  listen  for  the  noises 
of  the  King's  Road  behind  the  buildings  to  the 
right,  or  the  clangour  of  the  factories  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water.  And  then  I  would 
turn,  and  watch  the  butterflies  of  fire  flash  out 
of  the  dusk  and  perch  along  the  bridge  in  glit- 
tering clusters.  As  the  dark  fell,  lights  shone 
out  along  the  Embankment,  climbed  slowly 
up  the  rigging  of  the  boats  by  the  wharf,  and 
lit  up  the  square  windows  of  the  houses  and 
taverns  by  the  waterside.  Often,  walking 
along,  when  the  reflections  followed  me  with 
long  indexes  across  the  water  as  I  moved, 
when  the  tugs  coming  round  the  bend  of  the 
river  lit  up  their  red  and  green,  when  over 
everything  hung  that  mist  so  miraculously 
blue  that  it  took  a  Whistler  to  perceive  it,  I 
have  thought  of  the  old  times  when  kings  and 
philosophers  bathed  in  the  reeds  here,  and 
when  at  night  there  were  no  lights  at  all, 
except  where  the  sailors  were  merry  in  a 
tavern,  or  a  Steele  was  giving  a  party  in  one 
of  the  big  houses.     I  have  thought  of  Chelsea 


OLD  AND  NEW   CHELSEA  47 

and  her  river  in  those  days,  and  Chelsea  and 
her  river  in  ours,  and  then,  as  I  have  looked 
again  along  the  glimmering  Embankment,  or 
seen  a  poet  and  a  girl  pass  by  arm-in-arm,  w^ith 
eyes  v^ide  open  to  that  spangled  loveliness 
that  smiles  undaunted  by  the  stars,  I  have 
thought  it  not  impossible  that  we  are  the 
more  fortunate  in  knowing  Chelsea  now. 


A  CHELSEA  EVENING 


A  CHELSEA  EVENING 

CHELSEA  seemed,  in  spite  of  all  its 
memories,  a  desolate,  lonely  place 
when  I  woke  sitting  on  the  packing 
case  by  the  window  of  my  lodging 
on  the  morning  after  my  arrival.  It  became 
populous  with  friends,  through  circumstances 
so  typical  of  the  snowball  growth  of  acquaint- 
anceship, and  of  one  kind  of  Chelsea  life,  that 
they  deserve  a  description  in  detail. 

The  only  man  I  knew  in  Chelsea  was  a  Jap- 
anese artist  who  had  been  my  friend  in  even 
earlier  days,  when  both  he  and  I  had  been  too 
poor  to  buy  tobacco.  We  had  known  each  other 
pretty  well,  and  he  had  come  to  Chelsea  some 
months  before.  I  called  on  him,  and  found  him 
lodging  in  a  house  where  he  shared  a  sitting- 
room  with  an  actor.  This  man,  called  Wilton, 
was  such  an  actor  that  he  seemed  a  very  cari- 
cature of  his  own  species.  It  was  a  delight  to 
watch  him.  He  was  lying  at  full  length  on  a 
dilapidated  sofa,  so  arranged  that  he  could, 
without  moving,  see  his  face  in  a  mirror  on  the 
other  side  of  the  room.  He  was  very  long,  and 
in  very  long  fingers  he  held  a  cigarette.   Some- 

5X 


52  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

times,  with  the  other  hand,  he  would  rumple  the 
thick  black  hair  over  his  forehead,  and  then  he 
would  open  his  eyes  as  wide  as  he  could,  and 
glance  with  satisfaction  towards  the  looking- 
glass.  The  Japanese,  twinkling  with  mirth,  was 
seated  straddlewise  round  the  back  of  a  chair  by 
the  fireplace,  and  was  trying  eagerly,  with  short 
flashes  of  uncertain  English,  to  reason  the  actor 
into  a  piece  of  common  sense  about  his  pro- 
fession. He  jumped  up  when  I  came  in,  and 
the  actor  languidly  introduced  himself.  Then 
they  continued  the  discussion.  Wilton  refused 
to  believe  that  observation  was  in  any  way  neces- 
sary to  his  art. 

"  Pluck,"  he  said,  with  a  magnificent  gesture, 
"your  characters  from  your  own  heart  and  soul. 
If  I  act  a  king,  I  will  be  a  king  in  my  own  right, 
and  find  all  majesty  and  pride  in  my  own  con- 
sciousness." 

I  thought  privily  that  he  might  find  that  easy, 
but  the  Japanese,  reasoning  more  seriously,  con- 
tinued: "  But  if  you  were  going  to  act  an  idiot 
or  a  drunkard,  would  not  you " 

"  No,  I  would  not.  Every  man,  or  all  great 
men,  have  all  possibilities  within  them.  I  could 
be  divinely  mad  without  ever  wasting  time  in 
watching  the  antics  of  a  madman." 

"  But  do  you  tell  us  you  would  dare  to  act 
the  drunkard  without  watching  to  see  how  he 
walks,  and  how  he  talks  and  sings?   Would  you 


A  CHELSEA  EVENING  53 

act  an  old  woman  and  get  true  like,  without  see- 
ing first  an  old  woman  to  copy  the  mumbling  of 
her  lips?" 

"Ah,"  said  the  actor,  with  delighted  logic, 
"  but  I  would  never  act  an  old  woman.  And 
you  are  losing  your  temper,  my  dear  fellow. 
Some  day,  when  you  consider  the  matter  more 
calmly,  you  will  realise  that  I  am  right.  But 
do  not  let  men  of  genius  quarrel  over  an  argu- 
ment." 

And  then,  as  the  Japanese  smiled  unperceived 
at  me,  and  rolled  a  cigarette,  the  superb  Wilton 
turned  himself  a  little  on  the  sofa,  rearranged 
a  cushion  beneath  his  elbow,  and  began  a  long 
half-intoned  speech  about  newspapers,  the  folly 
of  reading  them,  the  inconceivable  idiocy  of 
those  who  write  for  them,  and  so  forth,  while  I 
agreed  with  him  at  every  point,  and  the 
Japanese,  who  knew  by  means  of  livelihood, 
chuckled  quietly  to  himself. 

The  actor  was  happy.  Flattered  by  my  con- 
tinual agreement,  the  billows  of  his  argument 
rolled  on  and  broke  with  increasing  din  along 
the  shores  of  silence.  The  only  other  sound  be- 
sides the  long  roll  of  his  impassioned  dogma  was 
the  low  murmur  of  my  assent.  Give  a  fool  a 
proselyte,  and  he  will  be  ten  times  happier  than 
a  sage  without  one.  Wilton  must  have  enjoyed 
that  afternoon.  He  thought  he  had  a  proselyte 
in  me,  and  he  talked  like  a  prophet,  till  I  won- 


54  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

dered  how  it  could  be  possible  for  any  one  man's 
brain  to  invent  such  flood  of  nonsense.  I  was 
happy  under  it  all  if  only  on  account  of  the  quiet 
quizzical  smile  of  the  Japanese,  who  was  mak- 
ing a  sketch  of  the  orator's  face. 

The  end  of  it  was  that  he  fell  in  love  with  an 
audience  so  silent,  so  appreciative,  and  decided 
that  he  must  really  have  me  with  him  that  night, 
at  the  house  of  a  lady  who  once  a  week  gave  an 
open  party  for  her  friends.  I  was  wanted,  it  was 
clear,  as  a  foil  to  his  brilliance.  It  was  at  least 
an  adventure,  and  I  agreed  to  come.  What 
was  the  lady's  name,  I  asked,  and  what  was 
she? 

He  was  too  impatient  to  go  on  with  his  ha- 
rangue to  tell  me  anything  except  that  she  was  an 
artist,  and  that  at  her  rooms  I  would  meet  the 
best  poets  and  painters  and  men  and  women  of 
spirit  in  the  town.  "  Indeed,"  he  added,  "  I  go 
there  myself,  regularly,  once  a  week." 

A  red-haired  serving  maid  brought  up  tea 
at  this  moment,  before  he  had  again  got  fairly 
into  the  swing  of  his  discourse,  and  he  withheld 
his  oratory  to  give  directions  for  us,  as  to  the 
quantities  of  milk  and  sugar  we  should  mix  for 
him,  together  with  a  little  general  information 
on  the  best  methods  of  drinking  tea.  The  Japan- 
ese set  a  chair  by  the  sofa  for  him,  and  I  carried 
him  his  cup  and  saucer,  and  a  plate  of  bread  and 
butter  from  the  table.     He  ate  and  drank  in 


A   CHELSEA  EVENING  55 

silence  for  a  moment,  and  then  broke  out  again 
in  florid  talk  about  slavery  on  sugar  plantations, 
the  text  being  the  two  lumps  which,  at  his 
orders,  had  been  placed  in  his  saucer.  After  tea 
he  went  on  talking,  talking,  talking,  until  eight 
in  the  evening,  when  he  went  upstairs  to  put  on 
a  clean  collar  and  to  rearrange  his  hair. 

Presently  he  reappeared,  with  a  curl  above  his 
forehead.  He  suggested  that  we  should  start. 
The  Japanese  excused  himself  from  accompany- 
ing us,  and  went  down  to  the  river  to  make 
studies  for  some  painting  upon  which  he  was 
engaged.  We  set  off  together  down  the  Fulham 
Road,  in  the  most  beautiful  light  of  a  summer 
evening.  There  was  a  glow  in  the  sky  that 
was  broken  by  the  tall  houses,  and  the  tower  of 
the  workhouse  lifted  bravely  up  into  the  sunset. 
Below,  in  the  blue  shadows  of  the  street,  people 
were  moving,  and  some  of  the  shops  had  lights 
in  them.  It  was  a  perfect  night,  and  completely 
wasted  on  the  actor,  and  indeed  on  me  too,  for  I 
was  intent  on  observing  him.  Now  and  again, 
as  he  strode  along  the  pavement,  a  girl  would 
turn  to  look  at  his  tall  figure,  and  it  was  plain 
that  he  noticed  each  such  incident  with  pleasure. 
When  we  came  among  the  shops  he  would  now 
and  again  do  his  best  to  catch  sight  of  himself 
in  the  glasses  of  the  windows,  and  occasionally 
to  this  end  would  stop  with  a  careless  air,  and 
light  a  cigarette,  or  roll  one,  or  throw  one  away 


56  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

into  the  road.  The  whole  world  was  a  pageant 
to  him,  with  himself  a  central  figure. 

At  last  we  turned  to  the  right,  between  houses 
with  narrow  gardens  and  little  trees  in  front  of 
them,  and  then  to  the  right  again,  till  we  stopped 
at  the  end  of  a  short  street.  "  Her  name  is 
Gypsy,"  he  said  dramatically.  "  No  one  ever 
calls  her  anything  else."  Then  he  swung  open 
the  garden  gate,  walked  up  the  steps  of  the 
house,  and  knocked  vigorously  on  the  door. 
Through  a  window  on  the  left  I  had  caught  a 
glimpse  of  a  silver  lamp,  and  a  brazen  candle- 
stick, and  a  weird  room  in  shaded  lamplight.  I 
was  tiptoe  with  excitement.  For  I  was  very 
young. 

Someone  broke  ofif  in  a  song  inside,  and  quick 
steps  shuffled  in  the  passage.  The  door  was 
flung  open,  and  we  saw  a  little  round  woman, 
scarcely  more  than  a  girl,  standing  in  the 
threshold.  She  looked  as  if  she  had  been  the 
same  age  all  her  life,  and  would  be  so  to  the  end. 
She  was  dressed  in  an  orange-coloured  coat  that 
hung  loose  over  a  green  skirt,  with  black  tassels 
sewn  all  over  the  orange  silk,  like  the  frills  on  a 
red  Indian's  trousers.  She  welcomed  us  with  a 
little  shriek.  It  was  the  oddest,  most  uncanny 
little  shriek,  half  laugh,  half  exclamation.  It 
made  me  very  shy.  It  was  obviously  an  affecta- 
tion, and  yet  seemed  just  the  right  manner  of 
welcome  from  the  strange  little  creature,  "  god- 


A  CHELSEA  EVENING  57 

daughter  of  a  witch  and  sister  to  a  fairy,"  who 
uttered  it.  She  was  very  dark,  and  not  thin,  and 
when  she  smiled,  with  a  smile  that  was  pecu- 
liarly infectious,  her  twinkling  gypsy  eyes 
seemed  to  vanish  altogether.  Just  now  at  the 
door  they  were  the  eyes  of  a  joyous,  excited  child 
meeting  the  guests  of  a  birthday  party. 

The  actor  shook  hands,  and,  in  his  annoying, 
laughable,  dramatic  manner,  introduced  me  as 
"a  clever  young  man  who  has  read  philosophy." 
I  could  have  kicked  him. 

"Come  in!"  she  cried,  and  went  shuffling 
down  the  passage  in  that  heavy  parti-coloured 
dress. 

Wc  left  our  hats  and  followed  her  into  a  mad 
room  out  of  a  fairy  tale.  As  soon  as  I  saw  it  I 
knew  she  could  live  in  no  other.  It  had  been 
made  of  two  smaller  chambers  by  the  removal 
of  the  partition  wall,  and  had  the  effect  of 
a  well-designed  curiosity  shop,  a  place  that 
Gautier  would  have  loved  to  describe.  The 
walls  were  dark  green,  and  covered  with  bril- 
liant-coloured drawings,  etchings,  and  pastel 
sketches.  A  large  round  table  stood  near  the 
window,  spread  with  bottles  of  painting  inks 
with  differently  tinted  stoppers,  china  toys, 
paperweights  of  odd  designs,  ashtrays,  cigarette 
boxes,  and  books ;  it  was  lit  up  by  a  silver  lamp, 
and  there  was  an  urn  in  the  middle  of  it,  in 
which  incense  was  burning.    A  woolly  monkey 


58  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

perched  ridiculously  on  a  pile  of  portfolios,  and 
grinned  at  the  cast  of  a  woman's  head,  that  stood 
smiling  austerely  on  the  top  of  a  black  cupboard, 
in  a  medley  of  Eastern  pottery  and  Indian  gods. 
The  mantel-shelves,  three  stories  high,  were 
laden  with  gimcracks.  A  low  bookcase,  crammed 
and  piled  with  books,  was  half  hidden  un- 
der a  drift  of  loose  pieces  of  music.  An  old 
grand  piano,  on  which  two  brass  bedroom  can- 
dlesticks were  burning,  ran  back  into  the  inner 
room,  where  in  the  darkness  was  a  tall  mirror, 
a  heap  of  crimson  silks,  and  a  low  table  with  an- 
other candle  flickering  among  the  bottles  and 
glasses  on  a  tray.  Chairs  and  stools  were 
crowded  everywhere,  and  on  a  big  blue  sofa 
against  the  wall  a  broadly  whiskered  picture- 
dealer  was  sitting,  looking  at  a  book  of  Jap- 
anese prints. 

We  had  scarcely  been  introduced  to  him,  and 
settled  into  chairs,  while  the  little  woman  in  the 
orange  coat  was  seating  herself  on  a  cushion, 
when  a  quick  tap  sounded  on  the  window-pane. 
"The  Birds!"  she  cried,  and  ran  back  into  the 
passage.  A  moment  or  two  later  she  came  back, 
and  a  pair  of  tiny  artists,  for  all  the  world  like 
happy  sparrows,  skipped  into  the  room.  The 
actor  knew  them,  and  welcomed  them  in  his 
magnificent  way.  They  were  the  Benns,  and  had 
but  recently  married;  she  modelled  in  clay  and 
wax,  and  he  was  painter  newly  come  from  Paris. 


A  CHELSEA  EVENING  59 

Two  people  better  deserving  their  nickname 
would  be  hard  to  find.  They  flitted  about  the 
place,  looking  at  the  new  prints  hung  on  the 
walls,  at  the  new  china  toy  that  Gypsy  had  been 
unable  to  deny  herself,  and  chattering  all  the 
time.  Benn  and  I  were  soon  friendly,  and  he 
presently  asked  me  to  visit  his  studio.  Just  as 
he  gave  me  a  card  with  his  address  upon  it,  for 
which  he  had  to  ask  his  wife,  he  was  caught  by 
a  sudden  remembrance,  and  turning  about  asked 
Gypsy  point  blank  across  the  broadside  of  con- 
versation, "  I  say,  you  haven't  such  a  thing  as 
a  big  sword,  have  you?  "  Oh,  yes,  but  she  had, 
and  in  a  minute  the  two  little  people  were  look- 
ing at  a  gigantic  two-edged  sword,  as  long  as 
either  of  them,  that  hung  from  a  hook  on  the 
wall.  The  actor,  with  a  delighted  exhibition  of 
grace  and  height,  reached  it  easily  down,  and 
Benn  was  for  swinging  it  at  once,  with  all  the 
strength  that  he  had,  if  his  wife  had  not  instantly 
brought  him  to  sense  and  saved  the  place  from 
devastation.  Instead,  he  described  the  picture 
he  was  painting.  The  central  figure,  he  told  us, 
was  to  be  an  old  knight  looking  regretfully  at 
the  armour  and  weapons  he  had  used  in  his 
youth.  This  was  the  very  sword  for  his  pur- 
pose. 

Just  then  there  was  another  tap,  and  two 
women  came  in  together.  The  first  was  a  tall, 
dark  Scottish  girl,  with  a  small  head  and  a  beau- 


6o  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

tiful,  graceful  neck,  very  straight  and  splendid 
(I  called  her  the  Princess  at  once  in  my  fan- 
tastic boyhood),  and  the  other  a  plump,  jolly 
American. 

As  soon  as  the  shaking  of  hands  was  all  over 
someone  asked  Gypsy  for  a  song.  "  Got  very 
little  voice  to-night,"  she  coughed,  "  and  every- 
body wants  something  to  drink  first.  But  I'll 
sing  you  a  song  afterwards."  She  went  through 
to  the  table  with  the  glasses  in  the  inner  room. 
"Who  is  for  opal  hush?"  she  cried,  and  all, 
except  the  American  girl  and  the  picture  dealer, 
who  preferred  whisky,  declared  their  throats 
were  dry  for  nothing  else.  Wondering  what  the 
strange-named  drink  might  be,  I  too  asked  for 
opal  hush,  and  she  read  the  puzzlement  in  my 
face.  "  You  make  it  like  this,"  she  said,  and 
squirted  lemonade  from  a  syphon  into  a  glass  of 
red  claret,  so  that  a  beautiful  amethystine  foam 
rose  shimmering  to  the  brim.  "  The  Irish  poets 
over  in  Dublin  called  it  so ;  and  once,  so  they  say, 
they  went  all  round  the  town  and  asked  at  every 
public-house  for  two  tall  cymbals  and  an  opal 
hush.  They  did  not  get  what  they  wanted  very 
easily,  and  I  do  not  know  what  a  tall  cymbal 
may  be.  But  this  is  the  opal  hush."  It  was  very 
good,  and  as  I  drank  I  thought  of  those  Irish 
poets,  whose  verses  had  meant  much  to  mc,  and 
sipped  the  stuff  with  reverence  as  if  it  had  been 
nectar  from  Olympus. 


A  CHELSEA  EVENING  6i 

When  everybody  had  their  glasses,  Gypsy 
came  back  into  the  front  part  of  the  room,  and, 
sitting  in  a  high-backed  chair  that  was  covered 
with  gold  and  purple  embroideries,  she  cleared 
her  throat,  leaned  forward  so  that  the  lamplight 
fell  on  her  weird  little  face,  and  sang,  to  my 
surprise,  the  old  melody: 

*  O  the  googoo  bird  is  a  giddy  bird, 

No  other  is  zo  gay. 
O  the  googoo  bird  is  a  merry  bird, 

Her  zingeth  all  day. 
Her  zooketh  zweet  flowers 

To  make  her  voice  clear, 
And  when  her  cryeth  googoo,  googoo, 

The  zummer  draweth  near." 

Somehow  I  had  expected  something  else.  It 
seemed  odd  to  hear  that  simple  song  drop  word 
by  word  in  the  incense-laden  atmosphere  of  that 
fantastic  room. 

After  that  she  chanted  in  a  monotone  one  of 
the  poems  from  Mr.  Yeats's  "  Wind  Among  the 
Reeds " : 

"  I  went  out  into  the  hazel  wood, 
Because  a  fire  was  in  my  head, 
And  cut  and  peeled  a  hazel  wand, 
And  hooked  a  berry  to  a  thread." 


And  then  the  stately  Scottish  girl  sat  down  at 
the  old  piano,  and  after  playing  an  indolent 


62  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

little  melody  over  the  faded  yellow  keys, 
brought  out  in  tinkling  sweetness  the  best  of  all 
the  songs  that  have  ever  come  to  London  from 
the  sea.  Nearly  all  the  company  knew  it  by 
heart  and  sang  together: 


"  Farewell  and  adieu  to  you,  fair  Spanish  ladies, 
Adieu  and  farewell  to  you,  ladies  of  Spain ; 
For  we've  received  orders  for  to  sail  for  Old  England, 
And  we  may  never  see  you,  fair  ladies,  again. 

"  So  we'll  rant  and  we'll  roar,  like  true  British  sailors, 
We'll  range  and  we'll  roam  over  all  the  salt  seas, 
Until  we  strike  anchor  in  the  channel  of  Old  England; 
From  Ushant  to  Scilly  'tis  thirty-five  leagues." 


It  is  no  wonder  that  such  a  lad  as  I  was  then 
should  find  the  scene  quite  unforgettable. 
There  was  the  beautiful  head  of  the  pianist, 
swaying  a  little  with  her  music,  and  the  weird 
group  beside  her — Gypsy  in  the  orange  coat 
leaning  over  her  shoulder,  the  two  small  artists, 
on  tiptoe,  bending  forward  to  remind  them- 
selves of  the  words,  the  hairy  picture-dealer 
smiling  on  them  benignantly,  the  actor  posing 
against  the  mantelpiece,  the  plump  American 
leaning  forward  with  her  elbows  on  the  table, 
her  chin  in  her  hands,  a  cigarette  between  her 
lips,  with  the  background  of  that  uncanny  room, 
with  the  silver  lamp,  the  tall  column  of  smoke 


A   CHELSEA   EVENING  63 

from  the  incense  urn,  and  the  mad  colours,  that 
seemed,  like  the  discordant  company,  to  har- 
monise perfectly  in  those  magical  surround- 
ings. 

When  the  song  was  done,  the  actor  told  me 
how  its  melody  had  been  taken  down  from  an 
old  sailor  in  this  very  room.  The  old  fellow, 
brought  here  for  the  purpose,  had  been  shy,  as 
well  he  might  be,  and  his  mouth  screwed  into 
wrinkles  so  that  no  music  would  come  from  it. 
At  last  they  made  him  comfortable  on  a  chair, 
with  a  glass  and  a  pipe,  and  built  a  row  of 
screens  all  around  him,  that  he  might  not  be 
shamed.  After  a  minute  or  two,  when  the 
smoke,  rising  in  regular  puffs  above  the  screens, 
told  them  that  he  had  regained  his  peace  of 
mind,  someone  said,  "Now,  thenl"  and  a 
trembling  whistling  of  the  tune  had  given  a 
musician  the  opportunity  to  catch  the  ancient 
melody  on  the  keyboard  of  the  piano.  They 
had  thus  the  pride  of  a  version  of  their  own,  for 
they  did  not  know  until  much  later  that  another 
had  already  been  printed  in  a  song-book. 

Presently  the  American  girl  begged  for  a 
story.  Gypsy  had  spent  some  part  of  her  life  in 
the  Indies,  and  knew  a  number  of  the  old  folk 
tales,  of  Annansee  the  spider,  another  Brer 
Rabbit  in  his  cunning  and  shrewdness,  and 
Chim  Chim  the  little  bird,  and  the  singing 
turtle,    and   the   Obeah   Woman,   who  was   a 


64  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

witch,  "wid  wrinkles  deep  as  ditches  on  her 
brown  face."  She  told  them  in  the  old  dialect, 
in  a  manner  of  her  own.  Fastening  a  strip  of 
ruddy  tow  about  her  head,  so  that  it  mingled 
with  her  own  black  hair,  she  flopped  down  on 
the  floor,  behind  a  couple  of  lighted  candles, 
and,  after  a  little  introductory  song  that  she 
had  learned  from  a  Jamaican  nurse,  told  story 
after  story,  illustrating  them  with  the  help  of 
wooden  toys  that  she  had  made  herself.  She 
told  them  with  such  precision  of  phrasing  that 
those  who  came  often  to  listen  soon  had  them 
by  heart,  and  would  interrupt  her  like  children 
when,  in  a  single  word,  she  went  astray.  To 
hear  her  was  to  be  carried  back  to  the  primitive 
days  of  story-telling,  and  to  understand,  a  little, 
how  it  was  that  the  stories  of  the  old  minstrels 
were  handed  on  from  man  to  man  with  so  little 
change  upon  the  way. 

That  was  my  first  evening  of  friendliness  in 
Chelsea.  For  a  long  time  after  that  I  never 
let  a  week  pass  without  going  to  that  strange 
room  to  listen  to  the  songs  and  tales,  and  to 
see  the  odd  parties  of  poets  and  painters,  actors 
and  actresses,  and  nondescript  irregulars  who 
were  there  almost  as  regularly  as  I.  Sometimes 
there  would  be  half  a  dozen  of  us,  sometimes 
twenty.  Always  we  were  merry.  The  evening 
was  never  wasted.  There  I  heard  poetry  read 
as  if  the  ghost  of  some  old  minstrel  had  de- 


A  CHELSEA  EVENING  65 

scended  on  the  reader,  and  shown  how  the 
words  should  be  chanted  aloud.  There  I  heard 
stories  told  that  were  yet  unwritten,  and  talk 
that  was  so  good  that  it  seemed  a  pity  that  it 
never  would  be.  There  I  joined  in  gay  jousts 
of  caricature.  There  was  a  visitors'  book  that 
we  filled  with  drawings  and  rhymes.  Every 
evening  that  we  met  we  used  its  pages  as  a 
tournament  field, 

"  And  mischievous  and  bold  were  the  strokes  we  gave, 
And  merrily  were  they  received." 

There,  too,  we  used  to  bring  our  work  when 
we  were  busy  upon  some  new  thing,  a  painting, 
or  a  book,  and  work  on  with  fresh  ardour  after 
cheers  or  criticism. 

The  party  broke  up  on  that  first  night  soon 
after  the  stories.  We  helped  Gypsy  to  shut  up 
the  rooms  and  dowse  the  lights,  and  waved  our 
good-nights  to  her  as  we  saw  her  disappear  into 
the  house  next  door  where  she  lodged. 

At  the  corner  of  the  street  the  Benns  and  I 
were  alone,  to  walk  the  same  way.  We  went 
down  the  Fulham  Road  together,  those  two 
small  people  chattering  of  the  new  picture,  and 
I,  swinging  the  great  sword  that  was  to  pose 
for  it,  walking  by  the  side  of  them,  rejoicing 
in  my  new  life  and  in  the  weight  and  balance 
of  the  sword,  a  little  pleased,  boy  that  I  was,  to 


66  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

be  so  much  bigger  than  they,  and  wondering 
whether,  if  I  swung  the  sword  with  sufficient 
violence,  I  had  the  slightest  chance  of  being 
rebuked  by  a  policeman  for  carrying  a  drawn 
weapon  in  the  streets. 


IN  THE  STUDIOS 


IN  THE  STUDIOS 

A  LARGE  bare  room,  with  no  furni- 
ture but  a  divan  or  a  camp-bed,  a 
couple  of  chairs,  an  easel,  and  a 
model-stand  made  of  a  big  box  that 
holds  a  few  coats  and  hats  and  coloured  silks 
that  do  duty  in  a  dozen  pictures;  a  big  window 
slanting  up  across  the  roof,  with  blinds  to  tem- 
per its  light;  canvases  and  old  paintings  with- 
out frames  leaning  against  the  walls ;  the  artist, 
his  coat  off  ready  for  work,  strolling  up  and 
down  with  a  cigarette  between  his  lips,  looking 
critically  and  lovingly  at  the  canvas  on  the  easel, 
and  now  and  again  pulling  out  his  watch:  that 
is  a  fair  picture  of  a  studio  at  about  half-past 
ten  on  a  workaday  morning. 
There  is  a  tap  on  the  door. 
"Come  inl"  and  a  girl  slips  into  the  room, 
apologises  for  the  thousandth  time  in  her  life 
for  being  so  late,  and  proceeds  to  change  her 
clothes  for  the  costume  that  will  make  her  the 
subject  he  wants  for  his  picture,  and  then,  taking 
the  chair  on  the  top  of  the  costume-box,  assumes 
the  pose  in  which  she  yesterday  began  to  sit. 
While  she  has  been  getting  ready,  he  has  made 

69 


JO  BOHEMIA   IN  LONDON 

his  last  preparations,  and  turned  the  key  in  the 
door,  so  that  no  chance  outsider  may  stumble  in 
and  discompose  his  model. 

He  looks  at  his  rough  drawing,  and  then  at 
the  girl.  "  We'll  get  to  work  now — Your  arm 
was  hanging  a  little  further  back — Yes — And 
your  head  is  not  quite — ^That's  better — So — Arc 
you  easy?    We  had  it  natural  yesterday " 

"How  is  this?"  She  alters  herself  slightly, 
and  the  artist  steps  back  to  have  another  look 
in  order  to  arrange  the  drapery. 

"  There's  only  one  thing  wrong  now,"  he  will 
say.  "  We  must  just  get  that  dark  shadow  that 
there  was  below  your  knee." 

The  girl  twists  her  skirt  over,  so  that  it  falls 
in  a  crease,  and  gives  the  streak  of  dark  that  he 
had  missed. 

"That's  it.  Well  done,  Serafinal"  he  ex- 
claims, and  is  instantly  at  work.  He  has 
already  arranged  the  blinds  over  the  window 
so  that  the  light  is  as  it  was  when  he  began  the 
painting. 

As  he  paints  he  tries  to  keep  up  some  kind 
of  conversation  with  the  girl,  so  that  her  mind 
may  be  alive,  and  not  allow  her  to  go  rigid  like 
a  lay  figure. 

"You  are  giving  me  the  whole  day?"  he 
will  ask,  although  the  matter  has  been  settled 
already. 

Gradually,  as  he  grows  absorbed  in  the  paint- 


IN   THE   STUDIOS  71 

ing,  he  has  even  less  brain  to  spare,  and  the  talk 
becomes  more  and  more  mechanical;  but  if 
Serafina  is  the  right  kind  of  model  she  will  do 
her  share  of  keeping  herself  amused. 

"  What  have  you  got  for  lunch?  "  she  asks. 

"  Four  eggs  I" 

"What  way  shall  we  cook  them,  do  you 
think?  " 

"  You  know  how  to  scramble  them.  Four 
eggs  are  enough  for  that?  " 

^*Yes.  I'll  scramble  them — ^you  have  milk? 
— and  butter?  " 

"  Got  them  first  thing  this  morning.  By  the 
way,  I  met  Martin  at  breakfast.  You've  posed 
for  him,  haven't  you?" 

And  so  the  talk  goes  on,  like  the  talk  of  pup- 
pets, she  just  passing  the  time,  trying  to  keep 
interested  and  real  without  moving  out  of  her 
pose;  he  slashing  in  the  rough  work,  bringing 
head,  neck,  shoulders,  the  turn  of  the  waist,  the 
fold  of  the  skirt,  into  their  places  on  the  canvas. 
Then  he  begins  to  paint  in  the  details,  and  is 
able  to  tell  her  what  he  is  about. 

"  I've  done  with  the  right  arm  for  the  present. 
Busy  with  the  face,"  he  says,  and  she  is  able 
to  move  her  arm  with  relief,  and  bend  it  to  and 
fro  if  it  is  getting  cramped. 

It  is  far  more  tiring  than  you  would  think  to 
remain  motionless  in  a  particular  pose.  The 
model  stiffens  insensibly,  so  that  an  interval  of 


72  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

rest  is  as  necessary  for  the  success  of  the  paint- 
ing as  it  is  for  her  own  comfort.  For  a  minute 
or  two  she  will  be  luxurious  in  leaving  her  pose, 
and  he  will  walk  anxiously  up  and  down,  look- 
ing at  the  picture,  seeking  faults,  and  plotting 
what  to  do  next  with  it.  And  then,  with  less 
trouble  than  at  first,  she  will  take  her  pose  again, 
and  he  will  paint  on,  and  talk  emptiness  as 
before. 

At  last  his  wrist  begins  to  tire,  and  he 
glances  at  his  watch. 

"We'll  have  lunch  now.  I  expect  you  are 
ready  for  it,  too."  He  puts  down  brush  and 
palette,  and  flings  himself  on  a  divan  opposite 
the  easel,  where  he  can  see  the  picture.  For 
he  works  on  at  it  in  his  head,  even  when  he  is 
not  painting.  She  slips  down  from  the  model- 
stand  and  puts  a  match  to  the  little  oil  stove  on 
the  soap  box  in  the  corner,  takes  the  eggs  and 
milk  and  butter  out  of  the  cupboard,  and  sets 
about  making  cBufs  brouilles,  the  favourite  dish 
of  half  the  studios  in  the  world. 

Then  she  will  come  and  look  at  the  picture, 
and  tell  him  how  well  and  rapidly  it  is  coming 
together,  and  what  a  nice  splash  of  colour  the 
crimson  silk  gives  where  the  light  falls  on  it. 
They  will  sit  down  to  lunch  if  there  is  a  table, 
or  if  not,  will  walk  about  the  room,  eating  the 
eggs  with  spoons  out  of  saucers,  and  munching 
bread  and  butter.     The  kettle  will  be  boiling 


IN  THE  STUDIOS  y^ 

briskly  on  the  stove,  and  they  will  make  a  little 
brew  of  coffee,  and  take  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
of  leisure,  with  cigarettes  and  coffee-cups,  before 
going  on  with  the  work. 

They  are  lucky  if  they  can  work  on  long 
after  four  o'clock  without  another  knock  sound- 
ing at  the  door.  There  are  as  many  again  lazy 
fellows  who  go  about  to  waste  time  as  there 
are  hard-working  artists.  Surely  enough,  when 
the  picture  is  all  juicy  and  pliable,  when  all  is 
going  as  a  painter  loves  it  best,  there  will  come 
a  tap  at  the  locked  door. 

"  Oh,  curse!  "  says  the  artist  under  his  breath, 
and  paints  on,  pretending  not  to  hear.  Tap 
comes  the  knock  again.  He  flings  down  his 
brushes,  turns  the  key,  and  opens  the  door  to 
the  interrupter,  one  of  those  pleasant,  friendly 
people  who  never  seem  to  have  anything  to  do. 
"  Oh,  it's  you,  is  it?  "  he  says,  as  graciously  as 
he  can.    "  Come  in." 

The  man,  genial,  full  of  chatter,  as  they  all 
are,  comes  in,  volubly  apologetic.  "  Look 
here,"  he  says,  "  don't  let  me  disturb  your  work. 
Oh,  hullo  I  How  are  you,  Serafina?  He's 
doing  well  with  you  this  time.  You'll  be  in 
all  the  papers,  my  dear,  and  then  you'll  be  too 
proud  to  pose  for  any  but  swells.  Yes,  I'll  have 
a  cigarette;  and  now,  look  here,  don't  stop  work- 
ing on  my  account.  Go  on  painting.  I'll  be 
making  you  two  some  tea." 


74  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

For  a  few  minutes,  as  he  warms  the  tea- 
pot, and  brings  the  tea  out  of  the  cupboard,  and 
drops  in  the  recognised  four  teaspoonfuls,  one 
for  each  of  them,  and  one  for  the  pot,  the  painter 
works  desperately  on.  Presently  the  interrupter 
walks  up  to  have  another  look  at  the  picture. 
He  stands  at  the  painter's  elbow,  buttering  the 
bosom  of  a  loaf  of  bread,  and  cutting  it  off  in 
thick  rounds.  "What  are  you  going  to  put 
in,  to  bring  the  light  up  into  that  corner?  "  he 
asks,  pointing  with  the  butter-knife. 

"  I  was  thinking  of  a  silver  pot:  what  do  you 
think  yourself?  Anyhow,  Serafina,  we've 
earned  our  tea."  So  work  comes  to  an  end  for 
the  day.  That  is  the  sole  virtue  of  the  inter- 
rupter— he  keeps  other  people  from  overwork- 
ing themselves,  and  Serafina  at  least  is  grateful. 

All  three  will  discuss  the  picture;  how  its 
lights  and  shadows  are  to  be  arranged  into 
repose,  and  prevented  from  playing  battledore 
and  shuttlecock  with  the  observer's  eye;  what 
colours  are  to  be  heightened,  what  toned  down; 
what  artifice  of  detail,  what  careful  obscurity  is 
to  be  introduced,  and  where;  and  so  on,  in  a 
jargon  incomprehensible  to  the  lay  mind,  as  the 
talk  of  any  other  trade.  The  discussion  is  not 
only  between  the  artists;  Serafina  will  bear  her 
share,  and  likely  enough  make  the  most  useful 
of  the  suggestions.  For  artist's  models  are  not 
hampered,    like    the    painters    themselves,    by 


WORK 


IN  THE  STUDIOS  75 

knowing  too  much,  and  at  the  same  time  they 
are  not  ignorant  as  the  ordinary  picture  buyer 
is  ignorant.  Some  of  them  have  been  brought 
up  in  the  studios  from  their  earliest  childhood, 
and  all  spend  so  much  of  their  lives  with  the 
artists,  and  watch  so  many  pictures  from  their 
inception  to  their  failure  or  success,  that  they 
have  a  very  practical  knowledge  of  what  makes 
a  painting  good  or  bad,  and  are  often  able  to 
help  a  picture  in  other  ways  than  by  posing 
for  it. 

Indeed,  most  of  them  talk  of  the  men  for 
whom  they  pose  as  "  my  artists,"  and  take  a 
most  personal  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  their 
pictures.  A  model  is  as  happy  as  the  painter 
when  she  can  say,  "  I  was  in  the  New  Gallery 
this  year,  or 
the  Acad- 
emy, in 
many  differ- 
ent paint- 
ings." They 
are  a  class 
very  much 
misunder- 
stood. A  girl  who  poses  for  an 
artist  is  not  the  immoral,  aban- 
doned woman  that  the  suburbs 
suppose  her.  She  picks  up  some-^ 
thing  of  an  education,  she  learns 


76  BOHEMIA   IN  LONDON 

something  of  art,  she  lives  as  interestingly,  as 
usefully  and  as  honestly  as  many  of  the  people 
who  condemn  her.  Many  an  artist  owes  his  life 
to  the  Serafina,  the  Rosie,  or  the  Brenda  who, 
coming  one  morning  to  ask  for  a  sitting,  has 
found  him  ill  and  alone,  with  nobody  to  nurse 
him  but  an  exasperated  caretaker.  Many  a  man 
has  been  kept  out  of  the  hospital,  that  dread  of 
Bohemia,  by  the  simple,  kind-hearted  model  who 
has  given  up  part  of  her  working  day  to  cooking 
his  food  for  him,  when  he  was  too  weak  to  do 
it  himself,  and  then,  tired  after  the  long  sittings, 
has  brought  her  work  with  her,  and  sat  down 
and  sewed  in  his  studio  through  the  evening, 
and  talked  cheerful  rubbish  to  him  that  has 
kept  him  from  utter  disheartenment. 

There  is  rich  material  for  novelists  in  the 
lives  of  these  girls.  One  would  have  liked  to 
be  an  actress,  but  had  not  a  good  enough  voice. 
Another  would  have  served  behind  a  counter, 
if  some  artist  had  not  noticed  her,  begged  her 
to  allow  him  to  paint  her,  and  then,  recom- 
mending her  to  his  friends,  shown  her  this  way 
to  a  livelihood.  Some  have  stories  that  read 
like  penny  novelettes,  and,  tired  of  oppressive 
stepmothers,  or  guardians,  or  elder  sisters,  have 
deliberately  left  their  homes,  and,  perhaps 
knowing  a  few  artists,  have  taken  up  this  work 
so  that  they  might  have  their  own  lives  to 
themselves.    Some   are  even   supporting   their 


IN  THE  STUDIOS  ^^ 

mothers  and  younger  brothers  or  sisters.  In 
nearly  all  cases  they  come  to  the  studios 
through  the  accident  of  meeting  a  discerning 
artist  in  the  street,  and  to  some  this  accident 
happens  so  early  that  they  are  practically 
models  all  their  lives.  One  child  used  to  come 
to  read  fairy  stories  with  me,  and  to  cut  out 
paper  figures  (a  most  joyous  game),  who  had 
posed  for  artists  since  she  was  three  years  old, 
and  was  now  fourteen.  Her  mother  had  been 
badly  treated  by  her  father,  and  the  little  girl 
and  her  two  elder  sisters  had  made  enough  to 
keep  the  family  without  his  help.  All  three 
were  very  beautiful.  Both  the  elder  ones 
married  artists,  and  the  little  girl  told  me  when 
last  I  saw  her  that,  so  far  as  she  was  concerned, 
she  was  going  to  marry  either  an  artist  or  a 
member  of  Parliament.  Another  model  had 
been  a  gypsy,  another  was  a  genuine  trans- 
planted specimen  of  the  rare  species  dairymaid 
as  Izaak  Walton  knew  it,  another  the  runaway 
daughter  of  a  shopkeeper  in  the  North  of 
France;  the  list  could  be  made  interminable. 

As  for  the  men  models,  they  are  not  so 
numerous  as  the  girls,  and  less  interesting. 
They  are  nearly  all  Italians,  tired  of  organ- 
grinding  or  ice-cream  making,  or  else  handsome 
old  soldiers,  or  good-looking  men  who  have 
come  down  in  the  world.  Some  of  them  are 
picturesque  enough.    One  morning,  still  in  bed, 


78  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

in  lodgings  over  some  studios,  I  heard  a  noise 
in  my  workroom,  and  jumping  up,  flung  open 
the  door,  thinking  to  surprise  my  burglar  in  the 
act.  In  the  middle  of  the  room  stood  a  charm- 
ing old  fellow,  with  a  small  knobbly  head,  very 
red  skin,  blue  seafaring  eyes,  and  a  wispy  white 
beard  round  cheeks  and  chin.  He  thought  I 
was  an  artist,  he  said,  and  had  come  to  see  if  he 
could  be  useful.  We  breakfasted,  and  he  be- 
came talkative  at  once.  He  had  been  a  sailor, 
had  done  well  about  the  world,  and  had  settled 
in  California  as  a  storekeeper,  when  he  had  been 
ruined  by  a  big  fire.  "  That  was  because  I  took 
Our  Lord  to  mean  insurance,  when  He  said 
usury.  It  was  set  clear  to  me  afterwards,  but  it 
was  too  late  then,  my  stuff  was  gone."  Since 
that  time  he  had  drifted,  too  old  to  pick  up 
again,  too  proud  to  give  in  and  enter  the  work- 
house. He  had  worked  his  way  to  England  on 
a  ship  he  had  once  commanded,  and  an  artist 
painting  shipping  had  met  him  walking  about 
the  docks,  and  told  him  he  could  make  a  living 
as  a  model.  "  And  I'm  doing  it,"  he  said,  "  and 
it's  not  a  bad  life.  There's  hard  times,  and 
there's  times  rough  on  an  old  man,  but  I'm  not 
so  weak  yet,  thanks  be,  and  I  get  tidily  along. 
Yes.  I'll  have  another  pipe  of  that  tobacco.  It 
isn't  often  you  gents  have  the  right  stuff." 

But  this   has   been   a  long   digression   from 
Serafina,  the  painter,  and  the  interrupter,  whom 


IN  THE  STUDIOS 


79 


we    left    taking   tea    and    discussing    the    pic- 
ture. 

What  do  they  do  next?  Perhaps  if  the  day- 
light has  not  gone,  and  the  interrupter  has  not 
been  thoroughly  efficient,  a  little  more  work  may 
be  done  after  tea.    But  it  is  more  likely  that  the 

painter  will  wash 


*> 


his  brushes,  and 
go  up  to  Soho  to 
dine  with  the  in- 
terrupter, possibly 
taking  Serafina 
with  him,  if 
she  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with 
her  evening. 
Or  he  may  go 
to  one  of  the 
artists'  clubs. 
In  the  old 
days  there 
was  no  club 
i  n  Chelsea, 
and  the  art- 
ists used  to 
feed  and  talk 
at  the  Six  Bells  Tavern,  the  public-house  in  the 
King's  Road,  or  else  at  one  or  other  of  the  small 
inns  along  the  riverside.  I  do  not  think  the  story 
of  the  founding  of  the  Chelsea  Art  Club,  in 


8o  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

Church  Street,  has  been  printed  before.  It  had 
been  proposed  that,  as  Chelsea  had  so  long  been 
associated  with  art,  an  exhibition  should  be  held 
to  illustrate  the  work  of  the  principal  painters 
who  lived  here.  Meetings  were  held  in  the  Six 
Bells,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  report 
on  the  possibilities  of  the  scheme.  All  the 
artists  concerned  met  in  one  of  the  Manresa 
Road  studios,  with  Mr.  Stirling  Lee,  the  sculp- 
tor, in  the  chair,  to  hear  the  result.  Whistler 
and  half  a  dozen  other  famous  artists  were  there. 
The  report  was  duly  read,  when  someone  got  up 
and  said  that  surely  there  was  something  that 
Chelsea  needed  more  than  an  exhibition,  and 
that  was  a  club.  "Club,  club,  club!"  shouted 
everybody,  and  the  exhibition  was  completely 
forgotten  at  once,  and  has  never  been  held  to 
this  day.  A  Teutonic  gentleman  proposed  that 
they  should  rent  a  room  for  the  club  in  the  Pier 
Hotel,  which  he  pronounced,  after  the  manner 
of  Hans  Breitmann,  "  Bier."  Whistler  rose,  in 
his  most  dignified,  most  supercilious  manner. 
"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  slowly,  "  Gentlemen,  let 
us  not  start  our  club  in  any  beer  hotel — let  us 
start  our  club  CLEAN."  The  result  was  the 
Chelsea  Art  Club,  in  a  house  of  its  own,  the 
meeting  place  of  all  the  Chelsea  artists,  and  the 
centre  of  half  the  fun,  the  frivolity,  the  gossip 
of  Chelsea  studio  life. 

Another  famous  artists'  club  is  the  Langham 


IN   THE  STUDIOS  8i 

Sketch  Club,  whose  rooms  are  close  behind  the 
Queen's  Hall.  Artists  meet  there  regularly,  and 
draw  and  make  pictures  all  in  a  room  together, 
with  a  time  limit  set  for  the  performance.  At 
intervals  they  exhibit  the  harvest  of  their  even- 
ings on  the  walls.  They  have  also  merry 
parties,  for  men  only,  when  the  doors  are 
opened  by  fantastical  figures,  and  scratch  enter- 
tainments go  on  all  the  time,  and  there  are  songs 
and  jovial  recitations.  Nights  there  are  as 
merry  as  any,  and  the  rooms  are  full  of  cele- 
brated men,  and  men  about  to  be  celebrated; 
for  the  club  does  not  tolerate  bunglers. 

The  painter  might  go  to  one  of  those  places; 
or  else,  after  a  supper  in  Soho,  or  in  one  of  the 
very  few  little  restaurants  in  Chelsea,  he  might 
spend  the  evening  in  someone  else's  studio,  per- 
haps in  the  same  block  or  buildings  as  his  own, 
for  few  of  the  studios  are  isolated,  and  there 
are  often  three,  five,  eight,  or  more  under  a 
single  roof.  The  studio  life  is  almost  like  the 
life  of  a  university,  with  its  friendliness,  its 
sets,  and  their  haughty  attitude  towards  each 
other. 

There  is  the  set  that  scorns  the  Academy  and 
all  its  works,  whose  members  never  cross  the 
threshold  of  Burlington  House,  and  smile  a  lit- 
tle pityingly  if  you  mention  an  R.A.  with  any- 
thing but  contempt.  For  them  the  ideals  and  ex- 
hibitions of  the  new  English  movement,  unless 


82  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

indeed  they  are  bold  Ishmaels  and  have  forever 
shaken  the  dust  of  exhibitions  from  their  feet. 
Then  there  is  the  rather  amusing  set  of  people 
who  laugh  at  the  Academy,  but  recognise  that 
it  is  the  best  picture  shop  in  Europe,  and  exhibit 
there  for  their  pocket's  sake.  And  then  there 
is  the  set  made  up  largely  of  old  Academy 
students,  and  of  men  with  wives  (who  will,  no 
matter  what  you  say  to 
them,  care  for  material 
success),  who  regulate 
all  their  work  by  the 
Academy  standards,  beg 
advice  from  the  R.A.'s, 
and  live  and 
die  a  hundred 
times  in  hope 
and  despair 
between  the 
sending  i  n 
day  and  the 
day  of  last  re- 
jections from 
that  most  au- 
gust, most  oli- 
garchic, most 
British  of  in- 
stitutions. 

The  men  o 
each  set  have 


IN   THE  STUDIOS  83 

a  habit  of  dropping  in  to  talk  away  their  even- 
ings in  particular  studios.  It  is  curious  this: 
how  one  studio  will  be  chosen  without  arrange- 
ment, by  accident  as  it  seems,  and  yet  be  made 
by  custom  so  regular  a  rendezvous  that  its  visi- 
tors would  scarcely  know  what  to  do  if  they 
were  asked  to  meet  anywhere  else.  If  you  arc  at 
dinner  in  Soho  with  men  of  one  set,  then  after- 
wards by  some  natural  attraction  you  find  the 
party  setting  out  for  Brown's  place;  if  with  men 
of  another  set,  then  assuredly  before  the  night  is 
out  you  will  be  smoking  a  cigarette  at  Robin- 
son's. It  is  not  that  the  man  whose  studio  is  so 
honoured  is  the  cleverest,  the  leader  of  the  set — 
he  is  often  a  mere  camp-follower  in  whatever 
movement  may  be  afoot.  It  is  not  even  that  he 
has  the  most  comfortable  rooms — one  favourite 
studio  is  the  poorest  in  a  building,  and  so  ill- 
furnished  that  if  you  visit  it  you  are  wise  to  bring 
your  own  chair.  I  do  not  know  what  the  reason 
is.  Some  men  are  best  in  their  kennels,  others 
best  out  of  them;  and  the  atmosphere  of  some 
kennels  is  more  companionable  than  that  of 
others ;  there  can  be  nothing  else. 

About  nine  o'clock  the  painter,  if  he  has 
not  gone  to  a  club,  will  arrive,  without  particu- 
lar effort,  at  one  of  these  more  hospitable  studios. 
Perhaps  there  will  be  a  piano  in  a  corner,  with 
a  man  playing  over  its  keys  in  the  dark.  An- 
other man  will  be  looking  at  the  prints  in  a  book 


84  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

by  the  light  of  a  candle.  Perhaps  there  will  be 
a  witty  little  model  telling  stories  and  keeping 
everybody  laughing.  Perhaps  there  will  be  no 
more  than  a  couple  of  friends,  who  no  longer 
find  talk  necessary  for  intercourse,  but  can  be 
perfectly  contented  in  tobacco  smoke  and  each 
other's  silence. 

They  will  greet  him  when  he  comes  with  a 
question  about  the  new  picture.  He  will  tell 
them,  of  course,  that  it  is  going  to  be  a  failure, 
and  they  will  tell  him  not  to  be  a  fool.  And 
then  they  will  sit  on,  smoking,  playing  chess, 
singing,  talking  of  their  plans  for  the  year,  or 
the  idiosyncrasies  of  a  refractory  picture  buyer, 
or  the  abominable  vanity  of  some  stout  gentle- 
man who  wants  to  look  slim  in  a  portrait,  and 
so  on  and  so  on.  Late  at  night  they  will  sep- 
arate, and  he  will  go  home  to  have  a  last  look  at 
the  picture,  anxiously,  sleepily,  holding  a  flick- 
ering candle;  and  then  to  sleep  on  the  camp-bed 
in  the  corner  of  the  studio,  to  dream  of  work 
and  of  the  picture  as  he  would  like  it  to  be,  un- 
accountably more  beautiful  than  he  can  make  it, 
until  he  wakes  next  morning,  hurries  over  the 
road  to  the  cook-shop  for  his  breakfast,  and  back 
again  to  be  impatiently  ready  for  the  arrival  of 
Serafina,  late  as  usual,  after  the  custom  of  her 
kind. 

And  so  go  twenty-four  hours  of  an  artist's 
life. 


THE  COUNTRY  IN  BOHEMIA 


WILLIAM  HAZLITT 


THE  COUNTRY  IN  BOHEMIA 

IONDON  is  full  of  people  who  keep  the 
country  in  their  hearts,  and  the  life 
J  of  studios,  taverns,  and  newspaper  of- 
■^  fices  is  lived  by  many  who  would  scorn 
the  name  of  Londoner.  One  thinks  himself 
a  Devon  man,  another  is  a  Scot,  another,  though 
he  works  in  London  all  the  year,  calls  the 
Lake  Mountains  home.  It  is  so  now;  it  has 
been  so  ever  since  the  green  fields  drew  away 
from  London,  and  made  town  and  country  two 
hostile,  different  things.  Hazlitt,  talking  meta- 
physically in  the  little  tavern  under  Southamp- 
ton Buildings,  or  seated  in  his  favourite  corner 
there,  with  a  pot  of  ale  before  him  for  custom's 
sake,  and  a  newspaper  before  his  eyes,  listening 
to  the  vain  talk  of  "  coffee-house  politicians," 
must  often  have  congratulated  himself  on  hav- 
ing been  able  to  ask  from  his  heart  for  "  the 
clear  blue  sky  above  my  head,  and  the  green 
turf  beneath  my  feet,  a  winding  road  before  me, 
and  a  three  hours'  march  to  dinner — and  then 
to  thinking."  He  can  never  have  forgotten  that 
he  was  more  than  the  townsman,  in  that  he  had 
known  the  Great  North  Road. 

87 


88  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

Borrow  was  another  of  your  countrymen  in 
town.  You  remember — ^when  he  wished  to 
fight  his  way  among  the  hack  writers  with 
"Ancient  Songs  of  Denmark,  heroic  and 
romantic,  with  notes  philological,  critical,  and 
historical,"  or  "  The  Songs  of  Ap  Gwilym,  the 
Welsh  bard,  also  with  notes  critical,  philolog- 
ical, and  historical " — his  disconcerting  inter- 
view with  the  publisher: 

"  I  am  very  sorry,  sir,"  says  Borrow,  "  to  hear 
that  you  cannot  assist  me.    I  had  hoped " 

"A  losing  trade,  I  assure  you,  sir;  literature 
is  a  drug.  Taggart  (this  to  his  clerk),  what 
o'clock  is  it?  " 

"  Well,  sir,  as  you  cannot  assist  me,  I  will 
now  take  my  leave;  I  thank  you  sincerely  for 
your  kind  reception,  and  will  trouble  you  no 
longer." 

"  Oh,  don't  go.  I  wish  to  have  some  further 
conversation  with  you,  and  perhaps  I  may  hit 
on  some  plan  to  benefit  you.  I  honour  merit, 
and  always  make  a  point  to  encourage  it  when 
I  can;  but — Taggart,  go  to  the  bank,  and  tell 
them  to  dishonour  the  bill  twelve  months  after 
date  for  thirty  pounds  which  becomes  due 
to-morrow.  I  am  dissatisfied  with  that  fellow 
who  wrote  the  fairy  tales,  and  intend  to  give 
him  all  the  trouble  in  my  power.  Make 
haste.    .   .    ." 

I'll  warrant  Borrow  was  helped  to  keep  his 


THE  COUNTRY   IN  BOHEMIA      89 

upper  lip  straight  then,  and  afterwards,  when 
he  was  dismally  translating  into  German  the 
publisher's  own  philosophical  treatise,  that 
proved  the  earth  to  be  shaped  like  a  pear  and 
not  "  like  an  apple,  as  the  fools  of  Oxford  say," 
by  the  thought  of  country  roads,  and  horses  gal- 
loping, and  his  own  stout  legs  that  could  walk 
with  any  in  England,  and  his  arms  that  could 
swing  a  hammer  to  a  blacksmith's  admiration. 

And  what  of  Bampfylde  in  an  older  time, 
who  was  not  able,  like  Hazlitt  and  Borrow,  to 
see  the  country  again  and  again,  but  came 
here  from  it,  to  live  miserably,  and  die  with  its 
vision  in  his  heart?  Southey,  grave,  hard- 
working, respectable  as  he  was,  felt  something 
of  the  tragedy  of  that  countryman's  irregular 
life.  Through  the  sedate  and  ordered  phrases 
of  this  letter  of  his  to  Sir  Samuel  Egerton 
Brydges,  the  vivid,  unhappy  life  of  the  man 
bursts  through  like  blood  in  veins.  The  letter 
is  long,  but  I  quote  it  almost  in  full : 

Keswick,  May  10,  1809. 
"  Sir: 

" .  .  .  It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  hear  that  Bamp- 
fylde's  remains  are  to  be  edited.  The  circumstances  which 
I  did  not  mention  concerning  him  are  these.  They  were 
related  to  me  by  Jackson,  of  Exeter,  and  minuted  down  Im- 
mediately afterwards,  when  the  impression  which  they  made 
upon  me  was  warm. 

"  He  was  the  brother  of  Sir  Charles,  as  you  say.  At  the 
time  when  Jackson  became  intimate  with  him  he  was  just 


90  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

in  his  prime,  and  had  no  other  wish  than  to  live  in  solitude, 
and  amuse  himself  with  poetry  and  music.  He  lodged  in  a 
farmhouse  near  Chudleigh,  and  would  oftentimes  come  to 
Exeter  in  a  winter  morning,  ungloved  and  open-breasted, 
before  Jackson  was  up  (though  he  was  an  early  riser),  with 
a  pocket  full  of  music  or  poems,  to  know  how  he  liked  them. 
His  relations  thought  this  was  a  sad  life  for  a  man  of  family, 
and  forced  him  to  London.  The  tears  ran  down  Jackson's 
cheeks  when  he  told  me  the  story.  *  Poor  fellow,'  he  said, 
*  there  did  not  live  a  purer  creature,  and,  if  they  would  have 
let  him  alone,  he  might  have  been  alive  now.' 

"  When  he  was  in  London,  his  feelings,  having  been  forced 
out  of  their  proper  channel,  took  a  wrong  direction,  and  he 
soon  began  to  suffer  the  punishment  of  debauchery.  The 
Miss  Palmer  to  whom  he  dedicated  his  Sonnets  (afterwards, 
and  perhaps  still.  Lady  Inchiquin)was  niece  to  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds.  Whether  Sir  Joshua  objected  to  his  addresses 
on  account  of  his  irregularities  in  London,  or  on  other 
grounds,  I  know  not;  but  this  was  the  commencement  of 
his  madness.  He  was  refused  admittance  into  the  house; 
upon  this,  in  a  fit  of  half  anger  and  half  derangement,  he 
broke  the  windows,  and  was  (little  to  Sir  Joshua's  honour) 
sent  to  Newgate.  Some  weeks  after  this  happened,  Jackson 
went  to  London,  and  one  of  his  first  inquiries  was  for  Bamp- 
fylde.  Lady  Bampfylde,  his  mother,  said  she  knew  little  or 
nothing  about  him;  that  she  had  got  him  out  of  Newgate, 
and  he  was  now  in  some  beggarly  place.  *  Where  ? '  'In 
King  Street,  Holborn,  she  believed,  but  she  did  not  know 
the  number  of  the  house.'  Away  went  Jackson,  and  knocked 
at  every  door  till  he  found  the  right.  It  was  a  truly  misera- 
ble place ;  the  woman  of  the  house  was  one  of  the  worst  class 
of  women  in  London.  She  knew  that  Bampfylde  had  no 
money,  and  that  at  that  time  he  had  been  three  days  without 
food.  When  Jackson  saw  him  there  was  all  the  levity  of 
madness  in  his  manner;  his  shirt  was  ragged  and  black  as  a 
coal-heaver's,  and  his  beard  of  a  two  months'  growth.    Jack- 


THE  COUNTRY   IN  BOHEMIA      91 

son  sent  out  for  food,  and  said  he  was  come  to  breakfast  with 
him;  and  he  turned  aside  to  a  harpsichord  in  the  room,  liter- 
ally, he  said,  to  let  him  gorge  himself  without  being  noticed. 
He  removed  him  from  thence,  and,  after  giving  his  mother 
a  severe  lecture,  obtained  for  him  a  decent  allowance,  and 
left  him,  when  he  himself  quitted  town,  in  decent  lodgings, 
earnestly  begging  him  to  write. 

"  But  he  never  wrote ;  the  next  news  was  that  he  was 
in  a  private  madhouse,  and  Jackson  never  saw  him  more. 
Almost  the  last  time  they  met,  he  showed  several  poems, 
among  others,  a  ballad  on  the  murder  of  David  Rizzio ;  such 
a  ballad !  said  he.  He  came  that  day  to  dine  with  Jackson, 
and  was  asked  for  copies.  *  I  burned  them,*  was  the  reply; 
*  I  wrote  them  to  please  you ;  you  did  not  seem  to  like  them, 
so  I  threw  them  in  the  fire.'  After  twenty  years'  confine- 
ment he  recovered  his  senses,  but  not  till  he  was  dying  of 
consumption.  The  apothecary  urged  him  to  leave  Sloane 
Street  (where  he  had  always  been  as  kindly  treated  as  he 
could  be)  and  go  into  his  own  country,  saying  that  his  friends 
in  Devonshire  would  be  very  glad  to  see  him.  But  he  hid 
his  face  and  answered,  *  No,  sir;  they  who  knew  me  what 
I  was,  shall  never  see  me  what  I  am.'    .    .    ." 

His  was  a  different  case  from  that  of  Hazlitt 
leaving  Wem,  of  De  Quincey  running  from 
school,  or  of  Goldsmith  setting  out  from  Lissoy. 
It  is  a  sad  story  this  of  the  strength  of  the  town, 
of  its  coarse  fingers  on  the  throat  of  a  wild  bird, 
and  I  should  like  to  pretend  that  there  are  no 
Bampfyldes  in  Bohemia  to-day  who  have  lost 
their  poetry  in  London,  and  dare  not  go  back 
to  their  own  country,  "  lest  those  who  knew 
them  what  they  were,  should  see  them  what  they 
are."    It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  feel  ashamed  in 


92  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

the  presence  of  the  hills,  and  fearful  that  the 
spring  has  lost  its  power  of  refreshment. 

But  there  are  many  stronger  men,  who  have 
come  to  London  because  poetry  or  pictures  will 
not  support  them  in  the  villages  they  love,  and 
carry  a  glad  pride  in  their  hearts  that  softens 
the  blows,  and  eases  the  difficulties  of  the  town. 
It  is  something  as  you  walk  disconsolate  down 
a  publisher's  stairs,  like  a  little  boy  from  a  whip- 
ping, to  be  able  to  pull  up  your  despair  with  a 
stout  breath,  a  toss  of  your  head,  a  thought  of 
the  wind  in  your  face,  and  the  straight  road  over 
the  moorland,  with  the  peewits  overhead ;  some- 
thing, when  eating  a  hard-boiled  egg  at  a  coffee- 
stall,  to  remember  another  occasion,  when  in 
greater  straits  you  were  less  pusillanimous,  and 
tossed  away  your  last  eightpence  to  feed  and 
sleep  royally  in  a  little  village  inn,  ready  to  face 
the  world  with  empty  purse  and  cheerful  heart 
in  the  sunshine  of  the  morning.  Ay,  it  is  a  great 
thing  to  be  a  countryman,  to  know  the  smell  of 
the  hay  when  a  cart  rolls  by  to  Covent  Garden, 
and  to  dream  in  Paternoster  Row  of  the  broad 
open  road,  with  the  yellowhammer  in  the  hedge 
and  the  blackthorn  showing  flower. 

It  is  a  very  joyous  thing  for  a  countryman 
in  town,  when  some  small  thing  from  the 
Happy  Land  breaks  through  the  gloom  or 
weariness  or  excitement  of  his  irregular  life, 
like  a  fountain  in  the  dusk.    For  example,  I 


THE  COUNTRY  IN  BOHEMIA   93 


have  seldom  been  happier  in  Bohemia  than 
when  two  old  country  songs  that  have,  so  far 
as  I  know,  never  been  written  down  were 
sung  to  me  in  some  dingy  rooms  over  a  set  of 
studios  by  an  artist's  model  I  had  never  seen 
before. 

There  was  a  yellow  fog  outside,  and  a  lamp 
burned  on  my  desk,  in  the  ashamed  manner  of 
a  lamp  in  daylight.  It  does  not  matter  what 
article  my  brain  was  flogging  itself  to  produce, 
for  the  article  was  never  written.  My  landlady 
had  brought  me  up  some  beef  and  fried  onions 
in  a  soup  plate,  but  things  were  altogether  too 
woeful  for  the  enjoyment  of  lunch,  when  some- 
one tapped  at  my  door,  and  almost  instantly  a 


94  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

dainty,  slight  girl,  with  a  little  brown  felt  hat 
on  her  head  and  a  green  cloak  about  her,  opened 
the  door  and  smiled  at  me  from  the  threshold. 

"  Do  you  need  a  model?  "  she  asked. 

I  was  so  glad  to  see  anything  so  young  and 
fresh  and  beautiful  in  the  dull  lamplight  of 
that  fog-choked  room,  so  heartened  by  the 
very  sight  of  her,  that  1  almost  forgot  to 
answer,  and  then,  in  an  agony  of  fear  lest  she 
should  go  at  once,  when  she  saw  that  she  was 
not  in  a  studio,  explained  very  awkwardly 
that  I  was  very  glad  she  had  called,  that  it  was 
an  unpleasant  day,  that,  that  ....  and 
could  she  stop  to  lunch. 

She  laughed,  a  clear  country  laugh,  that  made 
it  possible  for  me  to  laugh,  too;  and  in  a  moment 
the  gloom  seemed  to  have  vanished  for  the  day, 
as  she  sat  down  as  pretty  as  you  please  to  share 
my  beef  and  onions. 

We  came  at  once  to  talk  of  the  country,  and, 
afterwards,  when  we  pulled  our  chairs  up  to 
the  fire,  and  she  let  me  light  a  cigarette  for  her, 
she  was  telling  me  of  her  old  life,  before  she 
came  to  London,  where  she  lived  in  a  little  vil- 
lage in  Gloucestershire.  Playing  with  the 
cigarette  in  her  fingers,  she  told  me  how  she 
used  to  get  up  to  make  her  brother's  breakfast 
before  he  went  out  to  labour  on  the  farm,  how 
before  that  she  had  been  at  the  village  school, 
and  how,  when  they  had  all  been  children,  her 


THE  ARTIST'S  MODEL 


THE   COUNTRY   IN   BOHEMIA      95 

old  grandmother  had  used  to  sing  to  them  every 
evening  songs  she  had  learned  in  her  youth. 
"  Did  she  remember  any  of  the  songs?"  I  asked, 
hoping,  and  yet  telling  myself  to  expect  no  more 
than  the  modern  jingles  that  have  been  made 
popular  by  print.  "  Why,  yes,  she  remembered 
a  few,  but  she  could  not  sing  as  well  as  her  old 
grandmother."  And  then,  after  a  little  entreaty, 
in  that  little  dark,  dusty  room  in  Bohemia,  she 
came  out  with  this  ballad  in  a  simple,  untrained 
voice  that  was  very  well  suited  to  the  words; 


Oh,  it's  of  a  fair  damsel  In  Londin  did  dwell ; 
Oh,  for  wit  and  for  beauty  her  none  could  excel. 
With  her  mistress  and  her  master  she  served  seven  year, 
And  what  followed  after  you  quickely  shall  hear. 


Oh,  I  took  my  box  upon  my  head.     I  gained  along, 
And  the  first  one  I  met  was  a  strong  and  able  man. 
He  said,  "  My  pretty  fair  maid,  I  mean  to  tell  you  plain. 
I'll  show  to  you  a  nearer  road  across  the  counterey." 


He  took  me  by  the  hand,  and  he  led  me  to  the  lane ; 
He  said,  "  My  pretty  fair  maid,  I  mean  to  tell  you  plain, 
Deliver  up  your  money  without  a  fear  or  strife. 
Or  else  this  very  moment  I'll  take  away  your  life." 

The  tears  from  my  eyes  like  fountains  they  did  flow. 
Oh,  where  shall  I  wander?     Oh,  where  shall  I  go? 
And  so  while  this  young  feller  was  a  feeling  for  his  knife, 
Oh,  this  beautiful  damsel,  she  took  away  his  life. 


96  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

I  took  my  box  upon  my  head.     I  gained  along, 

And  the  next  one  I  met  was  a  noble  gentleman. 

He  said,  "  My  pretty  fair  maid,  where  are  you  going  so  late?  " 

And  what  was  that  noise  that  I  heard  at  yonder  gate? 

"  I  fear  that  box  upon  your  head  to  yourself  does  not  belong. 
To  your  master  or  your  mistress  you  have  done  something 

wrong ; 
To  your  mistress  or  your  master  you  have  done  something  ill, 
For  one  moment  from  trimbeling  you  really  can't  stand  still." 


To  my  master  or  my  mistress  I  have  done  nothing  ill ; 

But  I  feel  within  my  own  dear  heart  it's  a  young  man  I  do 

kill. 
He  dem'ded  my  money,  but  I  soon  let  him  know, 
And  now  that  able  feller  lies  bleeding  down  below. 

This  gentleman  got  off  his  boss  to  see  what  he  had  got ; 
He  had  three  loaded  pistols,  some  powder  and  some  shot; 
He  had  three  loaded  pistols,  some  powder  and  some  ball, 
And  a  knife  and  a  whistle,  more  robbers  for  to  call. 

This  gentleman  blew  the  whistle,  he  blew  it  both  loud  and 

shrill. 
And  four  more  gallant  robbers  came  trimbling  down  the  hill. 
Oh,  this  gentleman  shot  one  of  them,  and  then  most  speedilee, 
Oh,  this  beautiful  damsel,  she  shot  the  other  three. 

"  And  now,  my  pretty  fair  maid,  for  what  you  have  done, 
I'll  make  of  you  my  charming  bride  before  it  is  long. 
I'll  make  of  you  my  own  dear  bride,  and  that  very  soon. 
For  taking  of  your  own  dear  path,  and  firing  off  a  goon." 


THE  COUNTRY  IN  BOHEMIA   97 

It  was  a  strange  thing  to  hear  the  gentle,  lazy 
melody  that  carried  those  words  in  the  foggy 
little  London  room.  It  was  the  stranger  to  hear 
the  words  and  the  air  from  a  girl  like  this  one, 
who  had  now  taken  off  her  hat,  and  lay  back  in 
the  rickety  deck-chair,  smoothing  her  tangled 
golden  head,  and  ready  for  another  cigarette. 
The  setting  was  London  of  London:  the  song 
and  its  melody  carried  the  very  breath  of  the 
country  into  the  room;  the  girl,  an  artist's  model, 
smoking  cigarettes,  ready  I  have  no  doubt  to 
compare  with  knowledge  the  merits  of  cherry 
brandy  and  benedictine,  and  yet  as  happy  in 
singing  that  old  tune  as  her  grandmother  had 
been  long  ago  in  the  far-away  Gloucestershire 
cottage. 

Soon  after  that  she  stood  up,  laughing  because 
there  was  no  mirror,  to  put  on  her  little  hat.  I 
begged  her  to  stay  and  come  to  dinner  with  me 
in  Soho,  but  she  had  a  business  engagement,  to 
pose  for  a  pen-and-ink  illustrator  in  the  evening. 
She  left  me,  and  it  was  as  if  the  blue  sky  had 
shown  for  a  moment  through  the  clouds  and 
disappeared.  The  afternoon  was  foggy  London 
once  again,  and  Gloucestershire  seemed  distant 
as  the  Pole. 

In  talking  of  countrymen  and  their  comforts 
in  town,  I  cannot  think  how  I  forgot  to  men- 
tion the  consolation  of  a  village  reputation  far 
away.     When  editors  refuse  your  works,  and 


98  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

Academies  decline  to  hang  your  pictures,  you 
have  always  the  reflection  of  the  lady  of  the 
nursery  rhyme: 

"  There  was  a  young  lady  of  Beverley 
Whose  friends  said  she  sang  very  cleverly; 
*  She'll  win  great  renown 
In  great  London  town,' 
So  said  the  good  people  of  Beverley. 

"  But  in  London  this  lady  of  Bevereley 
Found  all  her  best  notes  fell  but  heavily; 
And  when  this  she  did  find, 
She  said,  'Never  mind, 
They  still  think  me  a  songbird  at  Beverley.'  " 

It  is  a  reflection  often  made  by  countrymen  in 
town. 


OLD  AND  NEW   SOHO 


s 


OLD  AND  NEW  SOHO 

OHO  has  always  been  a  merry  place. 
Even  at  the  time  when  Keats  wrote 
scornfully  of  it  in  a  letter  to  Hay- 
don: 

"  For  who  would  go 

Into  dark  Soho, 
To  chatter  with  dank-haired  critics, 

When  he  might  stay 

In  the  new-mown  hay 
And  startle  the  dappled  prickets?  " 

— even  then  there  were  plenty  of  fellows,  more 
merry  than  critical,  who  sported  as  playfully  in 
its  narrow  streets  as  ever  poets  did  in  hayfields. 
A  street  out  of  Soho  Square,  now  so  heavily 
odorous  of  preserved  fruit,  from  the  factory  at 
the  corner,  was  for  a  time  the  home  of  so  re- 
doubtable a  merrymaker,  so  sturdy  a  Bohemian, 
as  Pierce  Egan,  the  author  of  "  Life  in  London, 
or  the  Day  and  Night  Scenes  of  Jerry  Haw- 
thorn, Esq.,  and  his  elegant  friend  Corinthian 
Tom,  accompanied  by  Bob  Logic  the  Oxonian, 
in  their  Rambles  and  Sprees  through  the 
Metropolis."    A  jolly  book  indeed,  whose  very 

lOl 


I02  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

pictures but  Thackeray  has  described  them 

in  a  manner  inimitable  by  any  clumsy,  careful 
fellow : 

"  First  there  is  Jerry  arriving  from  the 
country,  in  a  green  coat  and  leather  gaiters,  and 
being  measured  for  a  fashionable  suit  at  Co- 
rinthian House,  by  Corinthian  Tom's  tailor. 
Then  away  for  the  career  of  pleasure  and 
fashion.  The  Park!  delicious  excitement!  The 
theatre!  the  saloon!!  the  greenroom!!!  Raptu- 
rous bliss — the  opera  itself  I  and  then  perhaps  to 
Temple  Bar,  to  knock  down  a  Charley  there! 
There  are  Jerry  and  Tom,  with  their  tights  and 
little  cocked  hats,  coming  from  the  opera — ^very 
much  as  gentlemen  in  waiting  on  Royalty  are 
habited  now.  There  they  are  at  Almack's  itself, 
amidst  a  crowd  of  highbred  personages,  with 
the  Duke  of  Clarence  himself  looking  at  their 
dancing.  Now,  strange  change,  they  are  in  Tom 
Cribbs'  parlour,  where  they  don't  seem  to  be  a 
whit  less  at  home  than  in  fashion's  gilded  halls : 
and  now  they  are  at  Newgate,  seeing  the  irons 
knocked  off  the  malefactors'  legs  previous  to 
execution.  .  .  .  Now  we  haste  away  to  mer- 
rier scenes:  to  Tattersall's  (ah,  gracious  pow- 
ers! what  a  funny  fellow  that  actor  was  who 
performed  Dicky  Green  in  that  scene  at  the 
play!) ;  and  now  we  are  at  a  private  party,  at 
which  Corinthian  Tom  is  waltzing  (and  very 
gracefully,    too,    as   you    must    confess)    with 


OLD  AND  NEW  SOHO  103 

Corinthian  Kate,  whilst  Bob  Logic,  the  Ox- 
onian, is  playing  on  the  piano  I " 

I  can  never  see  this  giddy,  rampant  book  with- 
out thinking  of  a  paragraph  in  it,  that  shows  us, 
through  the  Venetian-coloured  glass  of  Mr. 
Egan's  slang: 

"  Mr.  Hazlitt,  in  the  evening,  lolling  at  his 
ease  upon  one  of  Ben  Medley's  elegant  couches, 
enjoying  the  reviving  comforts  of  a  good  tinney 
(which  is  a  fire),  smacking  his  chaffer  (which 
is  his  tongue)  over  a  glass  of  old  hock,  and  top- 
ping his  glim  (which  is  a  candle)  to  a  classic 
nicety,  in  order  to  throw  a  new  light  upon  the 
elegant  leaves  of  Roscoe's  *  Life  of  Lorenzo  de 
Medici,'  as  a  composition  for  a  New  Lecture  at 
the  Surrey  Institution.  This  is  also  Life  in 
London." 

I  like  to  think  of  Hazlitt  at  Ben  Medley's, 
who  was  "  a  well-known  hero  in  the  Sporting 
World,  from  his  determined  contest  with  the 
late  pugilistic  phenomenon,  Dutch  Sam."  It 
is  pleasant,  is  it  not?  Almost  as  delightful  as 
that  glimpse  of  him  driving  back  from  the  great 
fight  between  Hickman  and  Neate,  when  "  my 
friend  set  me  up  in  a  genteel  drab  great  coat 
and  green  silk  handkerchief  (which  I  must  say 
became  me  exceedingly)." 

Pierce  Egan  knew  well  the  Bohemian  life  of 
his  day.  There  is  a  story  that  is  a  better  com- 
pliment to  his  spirit  than  his  head.     Some  of 


I04  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

his  friends  lifted  him,  dead  drunk  after  a 
masquerade,  into  a  cab,  put  some  money  in  his 
pocket,  gave  the  cabby  his  address,  and  an- 
nounced that  he  was  a  foreign  nobleman.  Off 
drives  the  cabby,  and  finds  the  house,  with  ten 
bell-pulls,  ringing  to  the  rooms  belonging  to  the 
different  tenants.  Cheerfully,  as  one  with  no- 
bility in  his  cab,  he  tugs  the  whole  ten.  From 
every  window  indignant  night-capped  heads 
deny  relationship  with  any  foreign  nobleman. 
"  But  I've  brought  him  from  the  masquerade, 
and  he's  got  money  in  his  pocket."  Instantly 
everybody  in  the  house  runs  downstairs  and  out 
into  the  street.  Egan's  wife  recognised  her 
errant  husband,  and,  with  the  help  of  the  other 
lodgers,  carried  him  to  his  room.  He  was  out 
on  the  spree  again  the  following  day. 

Egan  was  a  gay  fellow,  wrote  voluminously, 
lived  vigorously,  and  if  he  did  not  deserve  it  in 
any  other  way,  fully  earned  the  title  of  a  Man 
of  Letters  by  a  passage  in  the  dedication  of  his 
most  famous  book  to  his  Majesty  George  IV. : 

"  Indeed,  the  whole  chapter  of  '  Life  in 
London  '  has  been  so  repeatedly  perused  by  your 
Majesty,  in  such  a  variety  of  shapes,  from  the 
elegant  A,  the  refined  B,  the  polite  C,  the  lively 
D,  the  eloquent  E,  the  honest  F,  the  stately  G, 
the  peep  o'  day  H,  the  tasteful  I,  the  manly  J, 
the  good  K,  the  nohle  L,  the  stylish  M,  the 
brave  N,  the  liberal  O,  the  proud  P,  the  long- 


OLD  AND  NEW  SOHO  105 

headed  Q,  the  animated  R,  the  witty  S,  the  flash 
T,  the  knowing  U,  the  honourable  V,  the  con- 
summate W,  the  funny  X,  the  musical  Y,  and 
the  poetical  Z,  that  it  would  only  be  a  waste  of 
your  Majesty's  valuable  time  to  expatiate  fur- 
ther upon  this  subject." 

But  Soho  has  known  more  lettered  men  than 
Egan.  De  Quincey,  young  and  new  to  London, 
before  he  had  lost  the  poor  woman  of  the  streets 
who,  out  of  her  own  penury,  bought  port  wine 
for  him  when  he  was  likely  to  die  on  a  doorstep 
in  Soho  Square,  found  lodging  in  an  unfur- 
nished house  in  Greek  Street.  The  ground 
floor  of  the  house  was  occupied  by  a  rascally 
lawyer,  whose  best  quality  was  a  devotion  to 
literature  that  led  him  to  shelter  the  boy  scholar, 
or  at  least  to  allow  him  to  sleep  on  the  floor  of 
nights  with  waste  papers  for  a  pillow,  and  an 
old  horse-blanket  for  a  covering,  that  he  shared 
with  a  hunger-bitten  child. 

Hazlitt  rests  in  the  graveyard  of  St.  Anne's, 
Wardour  Street,  having  put  off  the  wild, 
nervous  tangle  of  joys  and  miseries,  hopes  and 
disappointments,  and  violent  hates,  that  he  sum- 
marised on  his  death-bed  as  a  happy  life.  He 
died  in  Frith  Street. 

In  Gerrard  Street,  Dryden  lived  at  No.  43, 
and  doubtless  found  it  very  convenient  for  walk- 
ing down  of  an  afternoon  to  the  coffee-houses 
about  Covent  Garden.    Burke  lived  for  a  time 


io6 


BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 


at  No.  37,  and  the  greatest  of  all  clubs,  The 
Club,  of  Johnson,  Goldsmith,  and  Reynolds,  met 
at  the  Turk's  Head  Tavern  in  the  same  street. 

There  were  clubs  here  in  the  early  nineteenth 
century,  and  Thackeray  described  one  of  them 
in  "The  Newcomes":  "We 
tap  at  a  door  in  an  old  street 
in  Soho:  an  old  maid  with  a 
kind,  comical  face  opens 
door,  and  nods 
friendly,  and  says, 
*  How  do,  sir?  ain't 
seen  you  this  ever  so 
long.  How  do,  Mr. 
Noocom?'  *  Who's 
here?  ' '  'Most  every- 
body's here.'  We  pass 
by  a  little  snug  bar, 
in  which  a  trim 
elderly  lady  is  seated 
by  a  great  fire,  on 
which  boils  an  enor- 
mous kettle ;  while 
two  gentlemen  are  _^ 
attacking  a  cold  sad- 
dle of  mutton  and 
West  Indian  pickles: 
hard  by  Mrs.  Nokes  the 
landlady's  elbow — ^with 
mutual    bows — we    recog- 


/Kr 


OLD   AND  NEW   SOHO  107 

nise  Hickson  the  sculptor,  and  Morgan,  in- 
trepid Irish  chieftain,  chief  of  the  reporters  of 
the  Morning  Press  newspaper.  We  pass  through 
a  passage  into  a  back  room,  and  are  received  with 
a  roar  of  welcome  from  a  crowd  of  men,  almost 
invisible  in  the  smoke." 

All  the  districts  of  London  that  have  once 
made  themselves  a  special  atmosphere,  keep  it 
with  extraordinary  tenacity.  Fleet  Street  is  one 
example,  Soho  is  another.  The  Turk's  Head 
has  disappeared,  Thackeray's  club  is  not  to  be 
found;  but  every  Tuesday  a  dozen,  more  or  less, 
of  the  writers  of  the  day  meet  at  a  little  res- 
taurant in  the  very  street  where  Goldsmith  and 
Johnson  walked  to  meet  their  friends.  This  is 
the  Mont  Blanc,  a  very  old  house,  whose  walls 
have  once  been  panelled.  In  the  rooms  upstairs 
the  mouldings  of  the  panels  can  be  felt  plainly 
through  the  canvas  that  has  been  stretched  across 
them  and  papered  to  save  the  cost  of  painting. 
And  all  over  Soho  are  similar  small  meeting 
places,  where  irregulars  of  all  sorts  flock  to 
lunch  and  dine.  Still,  in  some  of  the  upper 
rooms  of  the  streets  where  De  Quincey  walked 
to  warm  himself  before  sleeping  on  the  floor, 
the  student  life  goes  on.  Still  in  some  of  the 
upper  windows  may  be  seen  the  glitter  of  a 
candle-light  where  a  scholar,  probably  foreign, 
pores  over  a  book  in  the  hours  when  the  British 
Museum  is  closed  to  him.    And  in  a  hundred  of 


io8  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

the  small  rooms  in  the  piles  of  Soho  flats,  small 
rooms  furnished  with  a  bed,  a  chair,  and  a  table 
that  also  serves  for  a  washing-stand,  are  there 
young  actors  and  actresses,  studying  great  parts 
and  playing  small  ones,  eager  to  be  Macduff  and 
content  meanwhile  to  represent  the  third  witch 
on  the  boards  of  a  suburban  theatre,  copying  the 
mannerisms  of  Miss  Edna  May,  and  keeping 
alive  by  smiling  at  the  pit  from  the  medley  of 
the  ballet. 

It  is  odd  to  think  of  the  days  when  a  shilling 
dinner  was  beyond  achievement,  when  a  sand- 
wich and  a  couple  of  bananas  seemed  a  supper 
for  a  Shakespeare.  Yet  those  were  happy  days, 
and  had  their  luxuries.  There  are  sandwiches 
and  sandwiches.  In  one  of  the  narrower  streets 
that  run  up  from  Shaftesbury  Avenue  towards 
Oxford  Street,  there  is  a  shop  whose  proprietor 
is  an  enthusiast,  a  facile  virtuoso  in  their  manu- 
facture. He  is  an  amateur  in  the  best  sense,  and 
no  selfish,  arrogant  fellow  who  will  allow  none 
but  himself  to  be  men  of  taste.  You  stand  in  the 
middle  of  his  shop,  with  all  kinds  of  meats 
arranged  on  the  shelves  about  you,  a  knife  on 
every  dish.  Veal,  potted  liver,  chicken  artfully 
prepared,  pate  de  foie  gras  or  a  substitute, 
tongue  spiced  and  garnished,  tongue  potted  and 
pressed,  lobster  paste,  shrimp  paste,  cockle  paste, 


OLD  AND  NEW   SOHO  109 

and  half  a  hundred  other  luscious  delicacies, 
wait  in  a  great  circle  about  you,  like  paints  on  a 
palette ;  while  you  stand  hesitating  in  the  middle, 
and  compose  your  sandwich,  a  touch  of  this,  a 
taste  of  that,  a  suspicion  of  this,  a  sprinkling  of 
that  again,  while  he,  at  once  a  skilful  craftsman 
and  a  great  genius,  does  the  rough  handiwork, 
and  executes  your  design,  often,  like  the  great 
man  of  the  art  school,  contributing  some  little  de- 
tail of  his  own  that  is  needed  for  perfection,  and 
presents  you  finally  with  the  complete  work  of 
art,  cut  in  four  for  convenient  eating,  for  six- 
pence only,  an  epicurean  triumph,  and  enough 
of  it  to  sustain  you  till  the  morning. 

After  your  sandwich,  you  will  find,  in  Little 
Pulteney  Street,  if  I  am  not  mistaken  in  the 
name,  a  man  with  bananas  on  a  hand  barrow, 
and  likely  enough  an  Italian  woman  with  a  red 
or  green  shawl  about  her  head,  turning  the 
handle  of  a  barrel-organ.  With  these  things  it 
is  easy  to  be  happy.  How  happy  I  used  to  be, 
walking  along  that  street  peeling  and  eating  my 
bananas,  while  my  heart  throbbed  bravely  to 
the  music  of  the  organ.  Sometimes  a  couple  of 
children  would  be  dancing  in  the  street,  as 
nautch  girls  might  enliven  the  supper  of  an 
Indian  potentate;  and  often  someone  would  be 
singing  the  words  to  the  barrel-organ's  melodies. 
What  were  the  favourite  tunes?   Ah  yes: 


no  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 


"  Dysy,  Dysy,  give  me  yer  awnser,  do ; 
I'm  arf  cryzy  all  fur  the  love  of  you," 


and 


"  As  you  walk  along 

The  Bar  de  Bullong 
With  a  independent  air, 

You  'ear  the  girls  declare 

There  goes  the  millyonaire, 
The  man  wot  broke  the  benk  at  Monte  Carlo" 

Yes;  those  were  very  happy  days,  and  you,  O 
reader,  lose  much  if  the  fulness  of  your  purse,  or 
the  delicacy  of  your  ear,  deprives  you  of  such  an 
enjoyment. 

When  your  income  rises  beyond  the  content- 
ment of  bananas  and  sandwich  for  dinner,  or 
earlier,  when  the  sale  of  a  picture,  or  a  longer 
article  than  usual,  entitles  you  to  a  tremulous 
extravagance,  you  have  an  adventurous  choice 
to  make  among  the  Soho  restaurants.  Every 
evening  after  half-past  six  or  seven  Soho  takes 
on  itself  a  new  atmosphere.  It  is  grubby  and 
full  of  romantic  memory  by  day.  At  night  it  is 
suddenly  a  successful  place,  where  the  proprie- 
tors of  little  restaurants  are  able  to  retire  upon 
the  fortunes  they  have  made  there.  The  streets, 
always  crowded  with  foreigners,  now  suffer 
odder  costumes  than  in  daylight.  Artists,  poets, 
writers,  actors,  music-hall  performers,  crowd  to 
the  special  restaurants  that  custom  reserves  for 
their  use.    I  do  not  know  how  many  small  eat- 


OLD  AND  NEW  SOHO  iii 

ing-houses  there  are  in  Soho;  though  I  set  out 
once,  in  a  flush  of  recklessness  at  the  sale  of  a 
book,  to  eat  my  way  through  the  lot  of  them ;  the 
plan  was  to  dine  at  a  different  restaurant  every 
night,  taking  street  by  street,  until  I  had  ex- 
hausted them  all,  and  could  retire  with  un- 
rivalled experience.  The  scheme  fell  through, 
partly  because  I  fell  in  love  with  one  or  two 
places,  so  that  my  feet  insisted  on  carrying  me 
through  their  doors,  when  my  conscience  an- 
nounced that  duty  to  the  programme  demanded 
a  supper  elsewhere,  and  partly  because  of  a 
relapse  into  impecuniosity  that  compelled  a 
return  to  the  diet  of  bananas  and  sandwiches. 

Alas,  that  this  should  be  a  record  of  fact  I 
What  mansions  of  the  stomach  could  I  not 
describe,  what  sumptuous  palaces,  where  wine 
and  Munich  lager  flow  from  taps  on  every  table, 
where  food  is  as  good  in  the  mouth  as  in  pros- 
pect, where  landlords  and  proprietors  stand 
upon  their  dignity,  and  refuse  money  as  an 
insult  to  their  calling.  How  perfectly  could  I 
reconstruct  Soho  in  a  gastronomic  dream.  Un- 
fortunately I  am  bound  as  tight  to  fact  as  to 
penury. 

The  first  Soho  restaurant  I  knew  was  Roche's, 
now  Beguinot's,  in  Old  Compton  Street.  A 
lean  painter  took  me;  it  was  a  foggy  night,  and 
we  crossed  Cambridge  Circus  with  difficulty, 
and  then,  almost  groping  our  way  along  the 


112  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

pavement,  found  the  door,  and  stepped  into  the 
glamour  and  noise  of  the  long  room  that  you 
enter  from  the  street.  The  painter  wished  to 
show  me  the  whole  place.  We  went  right 
through  to  the  inner  room  where  we  so  often 
dined  in  later  years,  and  downstairs  to  the  hot 
little  inferno,  where  a  few  brave  spirits  descend 
to  feed  and  talk.  The  painter  nodded  to  men  in 
both  rooms,  and  then  turned  to  me.  "  This  is 
Bohemia,"  he  said;  "what  do  you  think  of 
it?  "  We  went  back  into  the  front  room  and  sat 
down  behind  the  long  table,  so  that  I  could 
see  the  whole  place,  and  observe  the  people  who 
came  in. 

Opposite  our  long  table  were  half  a  dozen 
small  ones  placed  along  the  wall,  and  at  one  of 
these  sat  a  very  splendid  old  man.  His  long 
white  hair  fell  down  over  the  collar  of  his  velvet 
coat,  and  now  and  again  he  flung  back  his  head, 
so  that  his  hair  all  rippled  in  the  light,  and  then 
he  would  bang  his  hand  carefully  upon  the  table, 
so  as  not  to  hurt  it,  and  yet  to  be  impressive,  as 
he  declaimed  continually  to  a  bored  girl  who  sat 
opposite  him,  dressed  in  an  odd  mixture  of 
fashion  and  Bohemianism.  They  seemed  a 
queer  couple  to  be  together,  until  the  painter 
told  me  that  the  man  was  one  of  the  old  set,  who 
had  come  to  the  place  for  years,  and  remem- 
bered the  old  mad  days  when  everyone  dressed 
in  a  luxuriously  unconventional  manner,  like  so 


OLD  AND  NEW   SOHO  113 

many  Theophile  Gautiers.  The  painter,  who 
was  a  realist,  referred  scornfully  to  the  old 
fellow  as  "  a  piece  of  jetsam  left  by  the  roman- 
tic movement."  There  have  been  such  a  number 
of  romantic  movements  in  the  last  thirty  years 
that  it  was  impossible  to  know  what  he  meant. 
But  the  tradition  is  still  current  at  the  Soho 
dinner  tables  that  there  were  a  few  grand  years 
in  which  we  rivalled  the  Quartier  in  costume, 
and  outdid  Montmartre  in  extravagant  conversa- 
tion. It  was  pathetic  to  think  of  the  old  Roman- 
tic as  a  relic  of  that  glorious  time,  alone  in  his 
old  age,  still  living  the  life  of  his  youth. 

All  down  our  long  table  there  were  not  two 
faces  that  did  not  seem  to  me  then  to  bear  the 
imprint  of  some  peculiar  genius.  Some  were 
assuredly  painters,  others  journalists,  some  very 
obviously  poets,  and  there  were  several,  too,  of 
those  amateur  irregulars,  who  are  always  either 
exasperating  or  charming.  The  painter  pointed 
out  man  after  man  by  name.  There  was  So-and- 
So,  the  musical  critic ;  there  was  somebody  else, 
who  painted  like  Watteau :  "  ridiculous  ass," 
commented  my  realistic  friend;  there  was  So- 
and-So,  the  editor  of  an  art  magazine;  there  a 
fellow  who  had  given  up  art  for  a  place  in  his 
father's  business,  but  yet  kept  up  his  old 
acquaintanceships  with  the  men  more  faithful 
to  their  ideals. 

These  Soho  dinners  are  excellently  cooked 


114  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

and  very  cheap.  Only  the  wine  is  dearer  in 
England  than  in  France.  There  you  can  get 
a  carafon  for  a  few  pence,  and  good  it  is.  But 
here  the  cheapest  half-bottle  is  tenpence,  and 
often  disappointing.  The  wise  drink  beer.  It 
is  Charles  Godfrey  Leland  who,  in  his  jovial 
scrap  of  autobiography,  ascribes  all  the  vigour 
and  jolly  energy  of  his  life  to  the  strengthening 
effects  of  Brobdingnagian  draughts  of  lager 
beer  drunk  under  the  tuition  of  the  German  stu- 
dent. It  is  good  companionable  stuff,  and  a 
tankard  of  it  costs  only  sixpence,  or  less. 

In  the  same  street  with  Beguinot's,  a  little 
nearer  Piccadilly  Circus,  there  is  the  Dieppe,  a 
cheaper  place,  but  very  amusing.  We  used  to 
feed  there  not  for  the  sake  of  the  food  so  much 
as  for  the  pictures.  Round  the  walls  are  several 
enormous  paintings,  some  of  which  suggest  Bot- 
ticelli's Primavera  in  the  most  ridiculous  man- 
ner, only  that  all  the  figures  are  decently  clothed 
in  Early  Victorian  costume.  It  is  a  real  joy  to 
dine  there,  and  observe  them.  They  are  the 
dearest  funny  pictures  that  I  know. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  street  is  a  white- 
fronted  restaurant  kept  by  a  Monsieur  Brice,  to 
whom,  through  several  years,  I  have  been  faith- 
ful. Night  after  night  I  have  walked  through 
the  glitter  and  the  dusk  of  the  Soho  streets,  past 
the  little  tobacco  shop  where  they  sell  real 
Caporal  tobacco,  one  whiff  of  which  transports 


OLD   AND  NEW   SOHO  115 

you  as  if  in  an  enchanted  cloud  to  the  BouP 
Mich',  where  the  chansonniers  sing  their  own 
ballads,  to  the  Bal  BuUier  and  the  students' 
balls,  and  make  you  a  Parisian  in  a  moment.  I 
have  walked  along  there  night  after  night,  and 
turned  in  at  the  small  side  door,  and  through 
into  the  little  white  back  room,  where  the  best 
of  waiters  kept  a  corner  table.  What  suppers 
have  vanished  in  that  inner  room,  how  many 
bottles  of  dark  Munich  beer  have  flowed  to 
their  appointed  havens.  Here  the  Benns,  that 
little  painter  and  his  wife,  used  to  join  us,  and 
sit  and  talk  and  smoke,  planning  new  pictures 
that  were  to  be  better  than  all  that  had  been  done 
before,  talking  over  stories  as  yet  unwritten,  and 
enjoying  great  fame  in  obscurity.  Here,  too, 
used  other  friends  to  come,  so  that  we  often  sat 
down  a  merry  half-dozen  at  the  table,  and 
enjoyed  ourselves  hugely,  and  also  other  people. 
That  is  one  of  the  chief  merits  of  Soho  dinners — 
the  company  is  always  entertaining.  Some- 
times there  would  be  an  old  philosopher  at  the 
table  opposite,  who  would  solemnly  drink  his 
half-bottle,  and  then  smoke  a  cigarette  over 
some  modern  book.  One  day  he  leaned  across 
towards  our  table  with  Haeckel's  "  Riddle  of 
the  Universe  "  in  his  hand.  "  Read  this  book, 
young  people,"  he  said;  "but  you  should  read 
it  as  you  read  Punch.''''  That  was  his  introduc- 
tion to  our  party,  and  thenceforward,  when  he 


ii6  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

had  finished  his  meal,  he  would  always  smoke 
his  cigarette  with  us,  and,  smoothing  his  white 
beard  with  a  pensive  hand,  employ  himself  upon 
our  instruction  in  philosophy. 

On  other  evenings,  strangers  would  come  in, 
and  we  would  guess  their  ideals  from  their 
manners  of  unfolding  their  napkins — the  gay 
flourish  meant  the  artist,  the  deliberate  disen- 
tanglement the  man  of  prose,  the  careless  fling 
the  poet,  and  so  on — or  perhaps  one  of  our 
enigmas  would  join  in  our  talk,  and  puzzle  us 
the  more.  So  many  of  the  faces  were  far  from 
ordinary,  so  many  had  the  inexpressible  some- 
thing in  their  lines  that  suggests  an  interesting 
mind.  We  were  content  to  let  them  remain 
enigmas,  and  construed  them  each  one  of  us  to 
please  himself. 

Once  there  was  a  wedding  party  at  a  longer 
table,  made  by  joining  the  three  small  ones  at 
one  side  of  the  room.  The  bride  was  a  pretty 
model,  the  man  a  tousled  artist;  probably,  we 
agreed,  a  very  inferior  craftsman,  but  certainly 
an  excellent  fellow,  since  he  insisted  on  our 
joining  his  company,  which  was  made  up  of 
others  like  himself,  with  their  attendant  ladies. 
He  and  his  bride  were  off  to  Dieppe  for  an  in- 
expensive honeymoon,  so  that  the  feast  could  not 
be  prolonged.  At  half-past  eight  the  supper 
was  done,  and  in  a  procession  of  hansom  cabs 
we  drove  to  Victoria,  and  cheered  them  off  by 


OLD  AND  NEW   SOHO  117 

the  evening  boat  train,  the  two  of  them  leaning 
out  of  the  window  and  tearfully  shouting  of 
their  devotion  to  art,  to  each  other,  and  to  us, 
an  excited  heterogeneous  crowd,  who  sang 
"Auld  Lang  Syne,"  "God  Save  the  King," 
"  The  Marseillaise,"  and  the  Faust  "  Soldiers' 
Chorus,"  according  to  nationality,  in  an  in- 
extricable tangle  of  discord.  That  was  a  great 
night. 

The  Boulogne,  the  Mont  Blanc,  Pinoli's,  the 
France,  and  many  another  little  restaurant  knew 
us  in  those  days;  there  was  scarcely  one,  from 
B rice's  and  the  Gourmet's  in  the  south,  to  the 
Venice,  at  the  Oxford  Street  end  of  Soho  Street, 
that  had  not  suffered  our  merry  dinner  parties. 
There  was  not  one  that  was  not  in  some  way  or 
other  linked  with  a  memory  of  delight.  The 
waiters,  Auguste,  Alphonse,  Jean,  le  gros  Paul, 
le  grand  Renard,  all  were  our  friends,  and  joked 
with  us  over  our  evil  dialect  and  our  innumer- 
able acquaintance.  It  was  le  grand  Renard, 
that  great  man,  who  elaborated  the  jest  of  greet- 
ing us  every  time,  as  soon  as  we  entered,  with 
*'  Ah,  bon  soir,  Messieurs.  Your  friend  M'sieur 
So-and-So  has  not  been  here  to-day,  nor  M'sieur 
So-and-So,  nor  M'sieur  So-and-So,  nor  M'sieur 
So-and-So,  nor  M'sieur  So-and-So,  nor  M'sieur 
So-and-So,"  as  far  as  his  breath  would  carry 
him  in  an  incoherent  string  of  fantastic  names, 
real  and  invented,  that  delighted  us  every  time. 


COFFEE-HOUSES  ABOUT  SOHO 


COFFEE-HOUSES  ABOUT  SOHO 

THE  day  that  Casanova,  travelling  as 
the  Chevalier  de  Seingalt,  arrived 
in  London,  he  strolled  some  little 
way  from  his  lodging  through  the 
old  streets  of  Soho,  then,  as  now,  the  Italian 
quarter.  Presently  he  says,  "  I  saw  a  lot  of 
people  in  a  coffee-house,  and  I  went  in.  It  was 
the  most  ill-famed  coffee-house  in  London,  and 
the  meeting  place  of  the  scum  of  the  Italian 
population.  I  had  been  told  of  it  at  Lyons,  and 
had  made  up  my  mind  never  to  go  there;  but 
chance  often  makes  us  turn  to  the  left  when  we 
want  to  go  to  the  right.  I  ordered  some 
lemonade,  and  was  drinking  it,  when  a  stranger 
who  was  seated  near  me  took  a  news-sheet  from 
his  pocket,  printed  in  Italian.  He  began  to 
make  corrections  in  pencil  on  the  margin,  which 
led  me  to  suppose  he  was  an  author.  I  watched 
him  out  of  curiosity,  and  noticed  that  he 
scratched  out  the  word  ancora,  and  wrote  it  at 
the  side,  anchora.  This  barbarism  irritated  me. 
I  told  him  that  for  four  centuries  it  had  been 
written  without  an  h. 
"  *■  I  agree  with  you,'  he  answered,  '  but  I  am 


122  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

quoting  Boccaccio,  and  in  quotations  one  must 
be  exact.' 

"  '  I  humbly  beg  your  pardon ;  I  see  you  are 
a  man  of  letters.' 

"  '  A  very  modest  one ;  my  name  is  Martinelli.' 

"  '  I  know  you  by  reputation ;  you  are  a  cousin 
of  Casabigi's,  who  has  spoken  of  you;  I  have 
read  some  of  your  satires.' 

"  *  May  I  ask  to  whom  I  have  the  honour  of 
speaking? ' 

"  *  My  name  is  Seingalt.  Have  you  finished 
your  edition  of  the  "  Decameron  "?  ' 

"  '  I  am  still  working  at  it,  and  trying  to  get 
more  subscribers.' 

"  *  Will  you  allow  me  to  be  of  the  number?  ' 

"  He  put  me  down  for  four  copies,  at  a  guinea 
a  copy,  and  was  surprised  to  hear  I  had  only 
been  in  London  an  hour. 

"  *  Let  me  see  you  home,'  he  said ;  '  you  will 
lose  your  way  else.' 

"  When  we  were  outside  he  told  me  I  had  been 
in  the  Orange  Coffee-House,  the  most  disrepu- 
table in  all  London. 

"  '  But  you  go.' 

"  *  I  go  because  I  know  the  company,  and  am 
on  my  guard  against  it.' 

"  *  Do  you  know  many  people  here? ' 

"  '  Yes,  but  I  only  pay  court  to  Lord  Spencer. 
I  work  at  literature,  am  all  alone,  earn  enough 
for  my  wants.    I  live  in  furnished  lodgings,  I 


COFFEE-HOUSES  ABOUT  SOHO     123 

own  twelve  shirts  and  the  clothes  I  stand  up  in, 
and  I  am  perfectly  contented.'  " 

That  dialogue  might  serve  well  enough  for 
an  exaggerated  description  of  our  own  day.  For 
the  people  of  this  book  are  willing  to  drink  any- 
where but  in  the  more  tame  and  expensive 
places  of  the  West  End.  They  "  know  the  com- 
pany and  are  on  their  guard  against  it,"  and  go 
cheerfully  where  they  may  get  most  amusement 
at  the  smallest  cost. 

The  coflfee-houses  best  loved  by  the  Bohe- 
mians are  not  so  disreputable  as  the  Orange;  I 
doubt  if  their  reputations  can  have  gone  far 
beyond  Soho.  But  they  have  atmospheres  of 
their  own;  and  they  are  not  places  where  you 
are  likely  to  meet  anyone  oppressively  more 
respectable  or  better  dressed  than  yourself.  I 
am  thinking  of  two  small  houses  in  particular 
—"The  Moorish  Cafe"  and  "The  Algerian." 
Besides  these  there  are  many  others,  and  a  few 
neater,  more  luxurious,  more  expensive,  that 
help  to  wean  the  Bohemian  from  Bohemia;  and 
then  there  are  the  big  drinking  palaces  by 
Leicester  Square  and  Piccadilly  Circus,  where 
he  goes  when  he  needs  the  inspiration  of  a  string 
band,  or  the  interest  of  a  crowd  of  men  and 
women. 

Near  the  Oxford  Street  end  of  Soho  Street, 
on  the  left-hand  side  as  you  walk  towards  Soho 
Square,  is  a  small  green-painted  shop,  with  a 


124  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

window  full  of  coffee  cups,  and  pots,  and 
strainers  of  a  dozen  different  designs.  Looking 
through  the  window,  that  is  dimmed  likely 
enough  with  steam,  you  may  see  a  girl  busied 
with  a  big  coffee-grinding  machine,  and  watch 
the  hesitant  blue  flames  of  the  stove  on  which 
the  coffee  is  stewed.  Opening  the  door,  you 
step  into  a  babble  of  voices,  and  find  yourself 
in  a  tiny  Moorish  cafe.  The  room  is  twisted 
and  narrow,  so  that  you  must  have  a  care,  as 
you  walk,  for  other  people's  coffee  cups  upon 
the  small  round  tables.  At  every  table  men 
will  be  sitting,  blowing  through  their  half- 
closed  lips  long  jets  of  scented  smoke  that  dis- 
turb continually  the  smoke-filled  atmosphere. 
Some  will  be  playing  at  cards,  some  at  back- 
gammon, some  talking  eagerly  among  them- 
selves. Dark  hair,  dark  eyes,  sallow-skinned 
faces  everywhere,  here  and  there  a  low-caste 
Englishman,  and  sometimes,  if  you  are  lucky, 
a  Bohemian  in  emerald  corduroy,  lolling 
broadly  on  his  chair  and  puffing  at  a  porcelain 
pipe.  Sit  down  near  him,  and  it  is  ten  to  one 
that  you  will  be  engaged  in  a  wordy  battle  of 
acting,  of  poetry,  or  of  pictures  before  the  sedi- 
ment has  had  time  to  settle  in  your  coffee. 

The  coffee  is  thick  and  dark  and  sweet;  to 
drink  it  alone,  and  to  smoke  with  it  an  Eastern 
cigarette,  is  to  hear  strange  Moorish  melodies, 
to  dream  of  white  buildings  with  green-painted 


COFFEE-HOUSES  ABOUT  SOHO   125 

porticoes,  to  see  the  card-players  as  gambling 
dragomans,  to  snatch  at  a  coloured  memory  from 
the  Arabian  Nights.  The  material  for  the 
dream  is  all  about  you;  gaudy  pictures  in  bright 
blues  and  oranges  hang  on  the  walls;  there  is 
Stamboul  in  deliciously  impossible  perspective, 
there  the  tomb  of  the  Prophet,  there  an  Otto- 
man warship,  there  Noah's  Ark,  with  a  peacock 
on  the  topmast,  a  serpent  peering  anxiously 
from  a  porthole,  and  Noah  and  his  family 
flaunting  it  in  caftans  and  turbans  on  the  poop; 
from  the  brackets  of  the  flickering  incandescent 
lamps  are  hung  old  Moorish  instruments,  tar- 
boukas,  and  gambas,  dusty,  with  slackened 
strings,  and  yet  sufficient,  in  the  dream,  to  send 
the  tunes  of  the  desert  cities  filtering  through 
the  thick  air  of  the  room. 

"  The  Algerian  "  is  in  Dean  Street,  close  by 
the  Royalty  Theatre,  where  Coquelin  played 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac  and  kept  a  whole  party, 
French  painters  and  English  writers,  quavering 
between  laughter  and  tears,  uplifted  with  pride 
that  there  could  be  such  men  as  Cyrano,  and 
joy  that  there  was  yet  such  an  actor  as  Coquelin. 
It  is  on  the  same  side  of  the  street,  a  plain,  square 
window,  thoroughly  orthodox,  with  "  The  Al- 
gerian Restaurant"  written  over  the  top. 

Behind  a  small  counter  sits  Madame,  knit- 
ting, smiling  to  all  her  acquaintance  that  come 
in,  and  selling  neat  brown  packages  of  wonder- 


126  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

ful  coffee.  Beyond  is  an  inner  room,  whose 
walls  are  covered  with  cocoanut  matting,  and 
decorated  with  tiny  mirrors,  and  advertisements 
of  special  drinks.  If  you  can  get  a  corner  seat 
in  that  crowded  little  room,  you  may  be  happy 
for  an  evening,  with  a  succession  of  coffees  and 
a  dozen  cigarettes.  Sometimes  there  will  be  a 
few  women  watching  the  fun,  but  more  often 
there  will  be  none  but  men,  mostly  French  or 
Italian,  who  play  strange  card  games  and  laugh 
and  curse  at  each  other.  There  used  to  be  a 
charming  notice  on  the  wall,  which  I  cannot  re- 
member accurately. 


ANYONE   CAUGHT   GAMBLING   OR 
PLAYING   FOR   MONEY 

Will   be   kicked    into   the   gutter 
and  not  picked  up  again. 

PROPRIETOR. 


It  ran  something  like  that,  but  it  has  now  been 
replaced  by  a  less  suggestive  placard. 

Also  there  used  to  be  another  room  down- 
stairs, a  gay  companionable  place,  where  I  have 
played  a  penny  whistle  and  seen  some  dancing 
to  my  music.  Here  we  used  to  come  after  sup- 
per, to  drink  coffee,  smoke  cigarettes,  and  argue 
according    to    custom.      Here    would    young 


COFFEE-HOUSES  ABOUT  SOHO    127 

Frenchmen  bring  their  ladies,  and  talk  freely 
in  their  own  tongue.  Here  would  we,  too,  bring 
our  young  women.  It  used  to  amuse  me  to  notice 
the  sudden  hush  that  fell  on  the  talk  of  all  the 
couples  and  argumentative  people  when  the 
grim  Police  Inspector  and  his  important  body- 
guard stumped  heavily  down  the  stairs,  stood 
solemnly  for  a  moment  in  the  middle  of  the 
room,  and  then  went  slowly  up  the  stairs  again 
— and  the  flood  of  excited  chatter  in  several  lan- 
guages that  followed  their  disappearance. 

It  is  impossible  to  leave  the  Algerian  without 
remembering  the  wonderful  big  dog  who  used 
to  be  a  visitor  in  the  room  below.  He  was  a 
very  large  ruddy  collie.  Left  to  himself  he  was 
an  easy-going  fellow  who  would  accept  the  hos- 
pitality of  anybody  who  had  anything  to  spare; 
but  his  master  had  only  to  say  one  word,  and 
he  would  not  dip  his  nose  in  the  daintiest,  pret- 
tiest dish  of  coffee  in  the  world.  He  was  a 
gentleman  of  nice  manners;  if  his  master  di- 
rected his  attention  to  any  lady  who  happened  to 
be  there,  and  whispered  in  his  silky  ear,  "  Tou- 
jours  la  politesse,"  immediately,  with  the  gravity 
of  an  Ambassador,  he  would  walk  across  and 
lift  a  ceremonial  paw.  It  is  sad  that  the  room 
is  now  filled  with  lumber  that  was  once  so  gay 
with  humanity.  But  perhaps  it  will  be  opened 
again. 

Close  round  the  corner  opposite  the  Algerian 


128  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

is  a  pretty  white  cafe,  with  a  big  window  of 
a  thousand  little  leaded  panes,  through  which  it 
is  impossible  to  see.  The  whole  suggestion  of 
the  outside  is  comfort  and  secluded  luxury. 
And  indeed  so  it  is ;  you  go  there  when  you  are 
a  success;  or,  not  being  one  of  the  famous  or 
opulent,  when,  having  just  sold  a  book  or  a  pic- 
ture, you  feel  as  if  you  were.  Its  air  is  very 
dififerent  from  the  friendly  untidiness  of  the 
other  two  places.  White  cloths  are  on  the  tables, 
a  little  cut-glass  is  scattered  about,  and  there  are 
red  and  white  flowers  in  silver  vases — it  is  all 
so  neat  that  I  would  not  describe  it,  if  it  were 
not  a  favourite  place  of  the  more  fortunate  of 
the  Bohemians,  and  if  it  had  not  been  so  sweet  a 
suggestion  of  what  might  sometime  be. 

I  came  here  in  the  pride  of  my  first  twenty- 
guinea  cheque,  and  was  introduced  with  due 
ceremony  to  Jeanne  downstairs — pretty  little 
Jeanne,  who  says  most  mournfully  that  someone 
has  told  her  from  the  lines  of  her  hand  that  she 
will  not  be  married  till  she  is  two-and-thirty — 
eleven  whole  years  to  wait.  My  companion  was 
a  literary  agent,  who  showed  me  three  successes, 
two  novelists  and  a  critic,  out  of  the  half-dozen 
people  who  were  sitting  at  the  other  tables.  I 
almost  wished  he  had  not  brought  me,  until 
Jeanne  came  back  with  black  coffee  in  tall 
straight  glasses,  and  some  excellent  cigarettes, 
when  I  changed  my  mind,  and  thought  how 


COFFEE-HOUSES  ABOUT  SOHO    129 

often  I  would  come  here,  if  the  world  should 
turn  good  critic,  and  recognise  in  solid  wealth 
the  merit  of  my  masterpieces. 

Across  Shaftesbury  Avenue,  past  the  stage 
doors  of  Daly's  and  the  Hippodrome,  through 
the  narrow  asphalt  passage  that  is  often  crowded 
with  ballet  girls  and  supers,  walking  up  and 
down  before  the  times  of  their  performances  at 
one  or  other  theatre,  you  find  your  way  into  the 
brilliance  of  Leicester  Square.  The  Alhambra 
and  the  Empire  fill  two  sides  of  it  with  light, 
and  Shakespeare  stands  on  a  pedestal  between 
them,  resting  his  chin  on  his  hand  in  melancholy 
amazement. 

Downstairs  at  the  corner  of  the  Square  there 
is  the  drinking-hall  of  the  Provence,  a  long 
L-shaped  room,  with  a  band  playing  in  a  corner, 
and  smaller  rooms  opening  out  of  the  first,  and 
seeming  a  very  multitude  of  little  caverns  from 
the  repetition  of  the  mirrors  with  which  they 
are  lined.  There  are  frescoes  on  the  walls  of 
the  larger  room,  of  gnomes  swilling  beer,  and 
tumbling  headfirst  into  vats,  and  waving  defi- 
ance at  the  world  with  all  the  bravado  of  a  mug 
of  ale.  Fat,  pot-bellied  little  brutes  they  are, 
and  so  cheerfully  conceived  that  you  would 
almost  swear  their  artist  had  been  a  merry 
fellow,  and  kept  a  tankard  on  the  steps  of  his 
ladder  where  he  sat  to  paint  them. 

There  is  always  a  strange  crowd  at  this  place 


I30  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

— dancers  and  singers  from  the  music-halls,  sad 
women  pretending  to  be  merry,  coarse  women 
pretending  to  be  refined,  and  men  of  all  types 
grimacing  and  clinking  glasses  with  the  women. 
And  then  there  are  the  small  groups  indifferent 
to  everything  but  the  jollity  and  swing  of  the 
place,  thumping  their  beer  mugs  on  the  table 
over  some  mighty  point  of  philosophy  or  criti- 
cism, and  ready  to  crack  each  others'  heads  for 
joy  in  the  arguments  of  Socialism  or  Universal 
Peace. 

I  was  seated  at  a  table  here  one  night,  ad- 
miring the  picture  in  which  a  gnome  pours 
some  hot  liquid  on  another  gnome  who  lies 
shrieking  in  a  vat,  when  I  noticed  a  party  of  four 
men  sitting  at  a  table  opposite.  Three  were 
obviously  hangers-on  of  one  or  other  of  the  arts, 
the  sort  of  men  who  are  proud  of  knowing  an 
actor  or  two  to  speak  to,  and  are  ready  to  talk 
with  importance  of  their  editorial  duties  on  the 
Draper's  Compendium  or  the  Toyshop  Times. 
The  fourth  was  different.  A  huge  felt  hat 
banged  freely  down  over  a  wealth  of  thick  black 
hair,  bright  blue  eyes,  an  enormous  black  beard, 
a  magnificent  manner  (now  and  again  he  would 
rise  and  bow  profoundly,  with  his  hat  upon  his 
heart,  to  some  girls  on  the  other  side  of  the 
room),  a  way  of  throwing  his  head  back  when 
he  drank,  of  thrusting  it  forward  when  he  spoke, 
an  air  of  complete  abandon  to  the  moment  and 


COFFEE-HOUSES  ABOUT  SOHO    131 

the  moment's  thought;  he  took  me  tremendously. 
He  seemed  to  be  delighting  his  friends  with  im- 
promptu poetry.  I  did  a  mean  but  justifiable 
thing,  and  carried  my  pot  of  beer  to  a  table  just 
beside  him,  where  I  could  see  him  better,  and 
also  hear  his  conversation.  It  was  twaddle,  but 
such  downright,  spirited,  splendid  twaddle, 
flung  out  from  the  heart  of  him  in  a  grand,  care- 
less way  that  made  me  think  of  largesse  royally 
scattered  on  a  mob.  His  blue,  twinkling  eyes 
decided  me.  When,  a  minute  or  two  later,  he 
went  out,  I  followed,  and  found  him  vociferat- 
ing to  his  gang  upon  the  pavement.  I  pushed 
in,  so  as  to  exclude  them,  and  asked  him: 

"Are  you  prose  or  verse?" 

"  I  write  verse,  but  I  dabble  in  the  other 
thing."    It  was  the  answer  I  had  expected. 

"  Very  good.  Will  you  come  to  my  place  to- 
morrow night  at  eight?  Tobacco.  Beer.  Talk." 

"  I  love  beer.  I  adore  tobacco.  Talking  is 
my  life.    I  will  come." 

"  Here  is  my  card.  Eight  o'clock  to-morrow. 
Good-night."    And  so  I  left  him. 

He  came,  and  it  turned  out  that  he  worked 
in  a  bank  from  ten  to  four  every  day,  and  played 
the  wild  Bohemian  every  night.  His  beard  was 
a  disguise.  He  spent  his  evenings  seeking  for 
adventure,  he  said,  and  apologised  to  me  for 
earning  an  honest  living.  He  was  really  delight- 
ful.   So  are  our  friendships  made;  there  is  no 


132  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

difficulty  about  them,  no  diffidence;  you  try  a 
man  as  you  would  a  brand  of  tobacco;  if  you 
agree,  then  you  are  friends ;  if  not,  why  then  you 
are  but  two  blind  cockchafers  who  have  collided 
with  each  other  in  a  summer  night,  and  boom 
away  again  each  in  his  own  direction. 

Over  the  road  there  is  the  Cafe  de  I'Europe 
where,  also  downstairs,  there  is  an  even  larger 
drinking-hall.  Huge  bizarre  pillars  support  a 
decorated  ceiling,  and  beneath  them  there  are  a 
hundred  tables,  with  variegated  maroon-col- 
oured cloths,  stained  with  the  drippings  of  tank- 
ards and  wine-glasses.  There  is  a  band  here,  too, 
in  a  balcony  halfway  up  the  stairs.  This  place, 
like  all  the  other  cafes,  is  not  exclusively  Bohe- 
mian ;  we  are  only  there  on  sufferance,  in  isolated 
parties,  and  it  is  a  curious  contrast  to  look  away 
to  the  clerks,  demimondaines,  and  men-about- 
town,  sitting  at  the  other  tables;  faces  that  have 
left  their  illusions  with  their  youth,  faces  with 
protruding  lips  and  receding  chins,  weak,  fool- 
ish faces  with  watery  eyes,  office  boys  trying  to 
be  men,  and  worn-out  men  trying  to  be  boys,  and 
women  ridiculously  dressed  and  painted.  We 
used  to  go  there  most  when  we  were  new  to 
journalism,  and  we  found  it  a  great  place  for 
planning  new  periodicals.  Eight  or  nine  of  us 
used  to  meet  there,  and  map  out  a  paper  that 
was  to  startle  the  town,  and  incidentally  give  us 
all  the  opportunities  that  the  present  race  of  mis- 


COFFEE-HOUSES  ABOUT  SOHO     133 

guided  editors  denied.  We  would  select  our 
politics,  choose  our  leader-writers,  and  decide  to 
save  quarrels  by  sharing  the  dramatic  criticism 
between  us  all.  We  would  fight  lustily  over  the 
title,  and  have  a  wrangle  over  the  form.  Some 
would  wish  to  ape  the  Saturday  Review,  some 
would  desire  a  smaller,  more  convenient  shape 
for  putting  in  the  pocket,  and  others,  commer- 
cially minded,  would  suggest  a  gigantic  size  that 
might  make  a  good  show  on  the  bookstalls.  We 
would  stand  lagers  again  and  again,  proud  in 
the  knowledge  of  our  new  appointments,  leader- 
writers,  editors,  dramatic  critics  every  one  of 
us.  And  then,  at  last,  after  a  whole  evening  of 
beer  and  extravagance,  and  happy  pencilled  cal- 
culations of  our  immediate  incomes,  based  on  a 
supposed  sale  of  100,000  copies  weekly  (we 
were  sure  of  that  at  least) ,  we  would  come  sud- 
denly to  fact.  The  Scotch  poet,  whom  we 
usually  elected  business  manager  on  these  occa- 
sions, would  smile  grimly,  and  say,  "  Now,  gen- 
tlemen, the  matter  of  finance.  There  will  be 
printers  and  papermakers  to  pay.  Personally, 
and  speaking  for  myself  alone,  I  will  give  all 
that  I  possess." 

"And  how  much  is  that?"  we  would  cry,  al- 
though we  guessed. 

"  Well  " — and  he  would  make  great  show  of 
rummaging  his  pockets — "  it  seems  that  I  was 
cleaned  right  out  of  bullion  by  that  last  lot  of 


134  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

beer.  G'Rourke,  it's  your  turn  to  stand.  Waiter 
— ^waiter,  this  gentlemen  wants  another  round  of 
lagers." 

This  was  the  invariable  end,  and  at  closing 
time,  having  swung  from  the  glory  of  news- 
paper proprietorship  to  the  sordid  penury  of 
sharing  our  coppers  in  order  to  pay  all  'bus  fares 
home,  we  would  walk  along  Cranbourn  Street 
to  Piccadilly  Circus,  and  separate  for  the  night. 


THE  BOOKSHOPS  OF  BOHEMIA 


THE  BOOKSHOPS  OF  BOHEMIA 

WHERE  the  Charing  Cross  Road 
swirls  up  by  the  Hippodrome  in 
a  broad  curve  to  Cambridge  Cir- 
cus and  Oxford  Street,  it  drops, 
for  the  short  space  of  a  few  hundred  yards,  all 
shout  and  merriment  and  boisterous  efflorescence 
of  business,  and  becomes  as  sedate  and  proper  an 
old  street  as  ever  exposed  books  on  open  stalls 
to  the  public  fingers.  The  motor-'buses  may  rat- 
tle up  the  middle  of  the  road  on  their  rollicking 
dance  to  Hampstead,  the  horse-pulled  'buses 
may  swing  and  roll  more  slowly  and  nearer  the 
gutter;  no  matter,  for  the  pavements  are  quiet 
with  learning  and  book-loving.  All  through  the 
long  summer  afternoons,  and  in  the  winter,  when 
the  lamps  hang  over  the  shelves,  books  old,  new, 
second  and  third  hand,  lie  there  in  rows,  waiting, 
these  the  stout  old  fellows,  for  Elias  to  carry 
them  off  under  their  arms ;  waiting,  these  the  lit- 
tle ones,  for  other  true  book-lovers  to  pop  them 
in  their  pockets.  The  little  brown  Oxford  clas- 
sics, the  baby  Virgil,  the  diminutive  volumes  of 
Horace  and  Catullus  seem  really  to  peak  and 
shrivel  on  the  shelves,  suffocated  in  the  open 

137 


138  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

air,  and  longing,  like  townsmen  for  the  town, 
for  a  snug,  square  resting-place  against  the  lin- 
ing of  a  smoking  coat.  All  about  them  are  in- 
numerable bound  magazines,  novels  of  Dickens, 
Scott,  and  Thackeray,  novels  of  later  times 
marked  at  half  price,  old  sermons  from  sold  vic- 
arage libraries,  old  school  grammars,  and  here 
and  there  the  forgotten  immortals  of  the  'nineties, 
essays  published  by  Mr.  John  Lane,  and  poets 
with  fantastic  frontispieces.  Against  the  window 
panes,  behind  the  books,  hang  prints,  Aubrey 
Beardsleys  now,  and  designs  by  Housman  and 
Nicholson,  where  once  would  Rowlandsons 
have  hung,  Bartolozzis,  or  perhaps  an  engraved 
portrait  of  Johnson  or  Goldsmith,  done  by  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds,  or  perhaps  again  a  selection 
of  Amazing  Beauties  from  the  "  Garland  "  or 
the  "  Keepsake  "  or  the  "  Offering." 

Summer  and  winter,  book-buyers  range  up 
and  down  the  street;  book-buyers  who  mean  to 
buy,  book-buyers  who  would  buy  if  they  could, 
and  book-buyers  who  have  bought,  and  are  now 
tormenting  themselves  by  looking  for  bargains 
that  they  might  have  made,  choicer  than  those 
they  have  already  clinched.  There  is  a  rare  joy 
in  picking  books  from  the  stalls  without  the  in- 
terference of  any  commercial  fingers;  a  great 
content  in  turning  over  the  pages  of  a  book,  a 
Cervantes  perhaps,  or  a  Boccaccio,  or  one  of  the 
eighteenth-century   humourists,   catching   sight 


THE  BOOKSHOPS  OF  BOHEMIA     139 

here  and  there  of  a  remembered  smile,  and 
chuckling  anew  at  the  remembrance,  putting  the 
book  down  again,  rather  hurriedly,  as  if  to  de- 
cide once  for  all  that  you  must  not  buy  it,  and 
then  picking  up  another  and  repeating  the  per- 
formance. And  then,  the  poignant,  painful  self- 
abandon  when  at  last  you  are  conquered,  and  a 
book  leads  you  by  the  hand  to  the  passionless 
little  man  inside  the  shop,  and  makes  you  pay 
him  money,  the  symbol,  mean,  base,  sordid  in 
itself,  but  still  the  symbol,  that  the  book  has  won, 
and  swayed  the  pendulum  of  your  emotions  past 
the  paying  point. 

I  remember  the  buying  of  my  "  Anatomy  of 
Melancholy"  (that  1  have  never  read,  nor  ever 
mean  to — I  dare  not  risk  the  sweetness  of  the 
title) ;  two  big,  beautiful  volumes,  with  a  paper 
label  on  the  back  of  each,  they  stood  imperious 
on  the  shelves.  I  had  seven-and-sixpence  in  the 
world,  and  was  on  my  way  up  to  Soho  for  din- 
ner. I  took  one  volume  down,  and  turned  the 
thick  old  leaves,  and  ran  my  eye  over  the  black 
print,  broken  and  patterned  by  quotations  in 
italics,  Latin  quotations  everywhere  making  the 
book  a  mosaic  in  two  languages.  To  sit  and 
smoke  in  front  of  such  a  book  would  be  elysium. 
I  could,  of  course,  have  got  a  copy  at  a  library — 
but  then  I  did  not  want  to  read  it.  I  wanted  to 
own  it,  to  sit  in  front  of  it  with  a  devotional 
mind,  to  let  my  tobacco  smoke  be  its  incense,  to 


I40  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

worship  its  magnificent  name;  and  here  it  was 
in  such  a  dress  as  kings  and  hierarchs  among 
books  should  wear.  If  I  were  ever  to  have  a 
Burton,  this  Burton  would  I  have.  I  remember 
I  laid  the  book  down,  and  stoically  lit  a  pipe, 
before  daring  to  look  at  the  flyleaf  for  the  pen- 
cilled price.  Just  then  another  man,  one  with 
the  air  of  riches,  walked  casually  up  to  the  stall, 
and,  fearful  for  my  prize  and  yet  timorous  of 
its  cost,  I  seized  it  and  turned  with  trembling 
fingers  back  to  the  beginning : 

"Two  vols.  8/-." 

Turning  my  purse  inside  out,  1  went  in,  with 
the  two  volumes  and  the  three  half-crowns,  to 
come  to  some  agreement  with  the  bookseller. 
He  let  me  have  the  books,  but  dinner  vanished 
for  that  night,  as  the  meats  from  the  table  of 
Halfdan  the  Black,  and  I  had  to  walk  to  Chel- 
sea. But  what  a  joyous  walk  that  was  in  the 
early  autumn  evening!  Those  two  heavy  vol- 
umes, one  under  each  arm,  swung  me  up  the  hill 
from  Piccadilly  as  if  they  had  been  magic  wings. 
The  feel  of  them  on  my  sides  sent  my  heart  beat- 
ing and  my  face  unto  smiles.  One  of  the  volumes 
was  uncut — ^UNCUT.  My  landlord  met  me  at 
the  door  with  my  bill.  "  The  Devil  I "  my  heart 
said;  "  I  will  attend  to  it,"  uttered  my  lips;  and 
upstairs,  penniless,  by  the  light  of  a  candle,  that 
is,  after  all,  as  Elia  has  it,  "  a  kindlier  luminary 


A   BOOKSHOP 


THE  BOOKSHOPS  OF  BOHEMIA     141 

than  sun  or  moon,"  I  spent  three  hours  cutting 
that  volume,  leaf  by  leaf,  happier  than  can  well 
be  told. 

There  is  something  more  real  about  this  style 
of  buying  books  than  about  the  dull  mercenary 
method  of  a  new  emporium.  It  is  good,  granted, 
to  look  about  the  shelves  of  a  new  bookshop,  to 
see  your  successful  friends  and  the  authors  you 
admire  outglittering  each  other  in  smart,  gold- 
lettered,  brilliant-coloured  bindings;  to  pick  up 
pretty  little  editions  of  your  favourite  books — • 
what  pretty  ones  there  are  nowadays,  but  how 
sad  it  is  to  see  a  staid  old  folio  author  compelled 

to  trip  it  in  a  duodecimo ;  all  that  is  pleasant 

enough,  but  to  spend  money  there  is  a  sham  and 
a  fraud;  it  is  like  buying  groceries  instead  of 
buying  dreams. 

And  then,  too,  the  people  who  buy  in  the 
ordinary  shops  are  so  disheartening.  There  is 
no  spirit  about  them,  no  enthusiasm.  You  can- 
not sympathise  with  them  over  a  disappointment 
nor  smile  your  congratulations  over  a  prize — 
they  need  neither.  They  are  buying  books  for 
other  people,  not  to  read  themselves.  The  books 
they  buy  are  doomed,  Christmas  or  birthday 
presents,  to  lie  about  on  drawing-room  tables.  I 
am  sorry  for  those  people,  but  I  am  sorrier  for 
the  books.  For  a  book  is  of  its  essence  a  talkative, 
companionable  thing,  or  a  meditative  and  wise; 
and  think  of  the  shackling  monotony  of  life  on 


142  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

a  drawing-room  table,  unable  to  be  garrulous, 
being  uncut,  and  unable  to  be  contemplative  in 
the  din  of  all  that  cackle. 

The  others,  who  deal  at  the  second-hand 
shops,  come  there  of  a  more  laudable  purpose, 
to  buy  books  for  themselves — or  to  sell  them,  if 
their  libraries  have  become  insufferably  fuller 
than  their  purses.  This  last  case  is  at  once  sor- 
rowful and  happy:  sad  for  the  heart  pangs  of 
playing  the  traitor  to  a  book  by  handing  it  back 
to  a  bookseller,  happy  in  that  other  people,  per- 
haps you,  perhaps  I,  have  then  a  chance  of  buy- 
ing it.  It  is  an  odd  thing,  by  the  way,  that 
sumptuous  volumes  are  always  easiest  to  part 
with;  a  ragged,  worn  old  thing,  especially  if  it 
is  small,  tugs  at  our  feelings,  so  that  we  cannot 
let  it  go,  whereas  a  school  prize  or  an  elegant 
present — away  with  it.  They  say  that  little 
women  are  the  longest  loved.  It  is  difficult  for 
us  to  sympathise  with  Lord  Tyrconnel,  when  in 
withdrawing  his  patronage  from  Richard  Sav- 
age he  alleged  that,  "  having  given  him  a  col- 
lection of  valuable  books  stamped  with  my  own 
arms,  I  had  the  mortification  to  see  them  in  a 
short  time  exposed  to  sale  upon  the  stalls,  it  be- 
ing usual  with  Mr.  Savage,  when  he  wanted  a 
small  sum,  to  take  his  books  to  the  pawnbroker." 
How  many  presentation  copies,  in  large  paper 
and  vellum,  have  not  gone  in  a  like  manner? 
Though  nowadays  we  deal  direct  with  the  book- 


THE  BOOKSHOPS  OF  BOHEMIA     143 


seller,  and  do  not 
soothe  our  con- 
sciences  with  the  pre- 
tence of  intended  re- 
demption that  is  pos- 
sible when  a  pawn- 
broker receives  the 
books. 

This  leads  me 
conveniently  to  an- 
other subject.  Many 
young  authors  find 
help  towards  a  live- 
lihood by  selling  the 
copies  of  new  works 
that  come  to  them 
for  praise  and  blame 
from  the  newspapers. 
I  remember,  when 
first  my  reviewing 
began,  thinking  it 
unfair  to  their  writ- 
ers thus  to  place  books  they  had  sent  for  nothing 
to  the  papers  at  once  upon  the  second-hand  stalls. 
But  presently  as  a  Christmas  season  came  on, 
and  children's  books  and  sensational  novels 
poured  in  in  their  dozens  and  their  twenties,  the 
pile  in  the  corner  of  my  room  grew  beyond  all 
bearing,  for  I  would  not  insult  the  books  that 
had  been  purchased  in  their  own  right  by  giving 


QQ 


144  BOHEMIA   IN  LONDON 

them  these  foundling  newcomers  as  neighbours 
on  the  shelves.  I  was  driven  to  reasoning  again, 
and  soon  proved,  with  admirable  comfortable 
logic,  that  an  advertisement,  or  a  piece  of  good 
advice,  from  so  able  a  pen  as  my  own  must  be 
worth  more  to  an  author  than  the  chance  sale 
of  a  copy  on  the  stalls.  I  sent  immediately 
for  a  bookseller,  and  from  that  time  on  he  called 
each  Monday  to  remove  the  mangled  corpses 
of  the  week  before.  This  practice,  which  is 
very  generally  adopted  and  makes  a  pleasant 
little  addition  to  many  meagre  incomes,  is  the 
explanation  of  the  quantities  of  glowing  new 
novels  and  other  books  (some  of  them,  to  the 
discredit  of  the  reviewing  profession,  uncut) 
that  can  be  seen  marked  down  to  half  or  a  third 
the  published  price  in  almost  any  bookshop  in 
the  Charing  Cross  Road.  It  is  a  temptation  to 
buy  the  books  of  your  friends  in  this  easy  way. 
I  have  often  hesitated  over  a  Masefield,  or  a 
Thomas,  and  the  works  of  half  a  score  of  little 
poets.  But  God  deliver  me  from  such  baseness. 
These  shops  are  not  the  stalls  that  delighted 
Lamb,  and  Gay  before  him.  Those  were  far- 
ther east,  some  in  Booksellers'  Row,  now  cleared 
away  by  the  improvements  in  the  Strand,  some 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Covent  Garden,  some 
close  by  St.  Paul's,  where  in  the  alleys  round 
about  a  few  such  shops  may  still  be  found.  The 
City  shops  were  those  that  Gay  describes: 


THE  BOOKSHOPS  OF  BOHEMIA     145 

"  Volumes  on  shelter'd  stalls  expanded  He, 
And  various  science  lures  the  learned  eye; 
The  bending  shelves  with  pond'rous  scholiasts  groan, 
And  deep  divines  to  modern  shops  unknown : 
Here,  like  the  bee,  that  on  industrious  wing 
Collects  the  various  odours  of  the  spring, 
Walkers  at  leisure  learning's  flowers  may  spoil, 
Nor  watch  the  wasting  of  the  midnight  oil. 
May  morals  snatch  from  Plutarch's  tattered  page, 
A  mildew'd  Bacon  or  Stagira's  sage. 
Here  saunt'ring  'prentices  o'er  Otway  weep. 
O'er  Congreve  smile,  or  over  D  *  *  sleep." 

Gay,  walking  "with  sweet  content  on  foot, 
wrapt  in  his  virtue  and  a  good  surtout,"  the  first 
covering,  perhaps,  being  scanty  enough,  loved 
this  impecunious  public  so  much  better  than  his 
own  more  opulent  patrons  that  he  prayed  to 
his  publisher,  Bernard  Lintot,  "  a  great  sput- 
tering fellow,"  who  must  have  been  vastly  an- 
noyed at  his  author's  unbusinesslike  fancies: 

"  O  Lintot,  let  my  labours  obvious  lie. 
Ranged  on  thy  stall,  for  every  curious  eye; 
So  shall  the  poor  these  precepts  gratis  know, 
And  to  my  verse  their  future  safeties  owe." 

Lamb  loved  them,  too.  "  There  is  a  class  of 
street  readers,"  he  says,  "whom  I  can  never 
contemplate  without  affection — the  poor  gentry, 
who,  not  having  the  wherewithal  to  buy  or  hire 
a  book,  filch  a  little  learning  at  the  open  stall 
— the  owner,  with  his  hard  eye,  casting  envious 


146  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

looks  at  them  all  the  while,  and  thinking  when 
they  will  have  done.  Venturing  tenderly,  page 
after  page,  expecting  every  moment  when  he 
shall  interpose  his  interdict,  and  yet  unable  to 
deny  themselves  the  gratification,  they  *  snatch 
a  fearful  joy!'" 

Some  of  the  older-fashioned  stalls  remain, 
but  they  are  solitary.  They  do  not  sing  together 
like  the  morning  stars.  They  are  isolated  her- 
mits, often  in  strange  surroundings.  In  the  open 
markets  held  in  the  shabbier  streets,  where  flar- 
ing naphtha  lights  swing  over  barrows  like 
those  set  up  once  a  week  in  the  squares  of  little 
country  towns,  I  have  often  stood  in  the  jostling 
crowd  of  marketers,  to  turn  over  old,  greasy, 
tattered  covers.  There  is  an  aloofness  about  the 
bookstall  even  there,  where  it  stands  in  line  with 
a  load  of  brussels  sprouts  and  cabbages  on  one 
side,  and  a  man  selling  mussels  and  whelks  on 
the  other.  The  bookstall,  even  in  its  untidiness, 
has  always  the  air  of  the  gentleman  of  the  three, 
come  down  in  the  world,  perhaps,  but  still  one 
of  a  great  family.  I  have  sometimes  been 
tempted  to  alopogise  to  the  bookseller  for  tak- 
ing a  penn'orth  of  cockles  and  vinegar  while 
looking  at  his  books.  It  seemed  etiquette  not 
to  perceive  that  grosser,  less  intellectual  stalls 
existed. 

There  are  similar  book  barrows  in  the  market 
streets  of  the  East  End,  and  some  in  Earring- 


THE  BOOKSHOPS  OF  BOHEMIA     147 

don  Street,  where  I  have  heard  of  bargains 
picked  up  for  a  song.  But  I  have  never  visited 
them.  There  are  good  second-hand  shops  up 
the  Edgeware  Road,  and  I  got  Thorpe's 
"  Northern  Mythology "  for  threepence  in 
Praed  Street.  But  my  favourite  of  all  the  iso- 
lated shops  is  a  queer  little  place  at  the  dip  of 
Bedford  Street,  w^here  it  drops  into  the  Strand. 
It  has  but  a  lean  row  of  books  ranged  on  a  nar- 
row table  in  front  of  the  window,  but  its  prints 
are  superb.  There  are  maps  sometimes,  and 
often  old  hand-coloured  caricatures,  figures 
with  balloons  full  of  jokes  blowing  from  their 
mouths,  hanging  behind  the  glass  or  fluttering 
in  the  doorway.  And,  though  the  books  are 
so  few,  I  seldom  pass  the  shop  without  seeing 
office  boys  from  the  Bedford  Street  or  Henrietta 
Street  offices  skimming  through  them,  now  look- 
ing at  one,  now  at  another,  until  their  tardy 
consciences  hurry  them  at  last  upon  their  mas- 
ters' errands. 

Still,  if  we  except  Paternoster  Row,  mainly 
occupied  by  publishers,  the  Charing  Cross  Road 
is  the  only  street  whose  character  is  wholly  book- 
ish. By  these  shops  alone  are  there  always  a 
crowd  of  true  bookmen.  There  are  the  clerks 
who  bolt  their  lunches  to  be  able  to  spend  half 
an  hour  in  glancing  over  books.  There  are 
reviewers  selling  newspaper  copies.  There  are 
book-collectors  watching  for  the  one  chance  in 


148  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

ten  thousand  that  brings  a  prize  into  the  four- 
penny  box.  There  are  book-lovers  looking  for 
the  more  frequent  chance  that  brings  them  a 
good  book  at  a  little  price,  or  lets  them  read  it 
without  buying  it. 

I  have  met  old  ladies  there,  with  spectacles, 
and  little  bonnets  with  purple  ribbons,  eating 
buns  before  going  back  to  the  Museum  to  read, 
scanning  over  the  bookshelves,  like  birds  peck- 
ing for  crumbs  over  the  cobbles.  And  some- 
times I  have  met  really  old  ladies,  like  Mrs. 

,  who  told  me  she  had  sat  on  Leigh  Hunt's 

knee,  and  put  strawberries  into  his  mouth;  old 
ladies  who  remember  the  old  days,  and  the  old 
bookshops,  and  come  now  to  the  Charing  Cross 
Road  for  old  sake's  sake,  just  as  a  man  reads 
over  again  a  book  that  he  read  in  his  childhood 
for  that  reason  alone.  There  was  an  old  gen- 
tleman, too,  whom  I  loved  to  see  striding  across 
the  street  from  shop  to  shop,  dodging  the  'buses 
as  he  crossed,  with  a  long  grey  beard  that  di- 
vided at  his  chin  and  blew  over  his  shoulders, 
and  a  huge  coat,  all  brown  fur  without,  that 
flapped  about  his  legs.  There  was  another,  too, 
with  a  white  forehead  and  an  absent  eye,  and 
thin  black  clothes  with  pockets  bagged  out  by 
carrying  libraries.  I  caught  him  once  looking 
at  a  book  upside  down,  deep  in  some  dream  or 
other:  he  came  to  himself  suddenly,  and  saw 
that  he  had  been  observed — I  loved  him  for 


BOOKSHOPS   OF  BOHEMIA         149 

the  shamefaced,  awkward  way  in  which  he 
tried  to  pretend  he  had  been  looking  at  a  mark 
on  the  page.  Then,  too,  there  are  young  serious- 
faced  poets,  with,  who  knows  how  many  great 
works,  ready  planned,  floating  in  the  air  about 
their  heads:  it  is  pleasant  to  watch  the  super- 
cilious scorn  with  which  they  pass  the  shelves 
of  lighter  literature.  It  is  delightful,  too,  to 
see  the  learned  young  men  from  the  country 
trying  to  hoodwink  the  bookseller,  who  really 
does  not  care,  into  thinking  that  they  are  of  the 
connoisseurs,  and,  in  the  know,  by  asking  him 
with  a  particular  air  about  special  editions  of 
Oscar  Wilde,  and  who  has  the  best  collection 
of  Beardsley  drawings. 

Nor  must  I  forget  the  true  Tom  Folios,  who 
are  "  universal  scholars  as  far  as  the  title-pages 
of  all  authors,  know  the  manuscripts  in  which 
they  were  discovered,  the  editions  through  which 
they  have  passed,  with  the  praises  or  censures 
which  they  have  received  from  the  several 
members  of  the  learned  world.  They  think 
they  give  you  on  account  of  an  author  when 
they  tell  you  the  subject  he  treats  of,  the  name 
of  the  editor,  and  the  year  in  which  it  was 
printed."  We  have  several  such  about  the  Brit- 
ish Museum,  and  often  they  may  be  seen  in  the 
Charing  Cross  Road,  picking  over  the  older 
books,  glancing  at  the  title-pages  (if  by  any 
chance  you  catch  them  looking  at  the  text,  be 


I50  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

assured  they  are  only  examining  the  print). 
Some  of  them  are  useful  fellows,  like  one  I 
know,  who,  when  he  is  in  drink  and  merry,  can 
give  you  a  list  of  the  half-dozen  best  works  on 
any  subject  you  like  to  mention,  with  the  libra- 
ries or  bookshops  where  they  may  be  found. 

All  these  characters  may  be  met  by  the  book- 
stalls. Surely  among  the  lot  of  them  the  books 
on  those  shelves  have  a  better  chance  of  finding 
their  proper  owners,  the  readers  planned  for 
them  from  their  creation,  than  in  any  of  the 
glass-fronted  shops  where  the  customers  are  ha- 
rassed by  extravagantly  dressed  young  men,  who 
assume,  and  usually  rightly,  that  they  know  bet- 
ter what  is  wanted  than  the  customers  do  them- 
selves. 

Indeed,  I  am  quite  with  Gay  in  the  matter. 
I  would  be  happier  to  think  of  this  book  tat- 
tered and  torn  in  a  twopenny  box,  than  lying 
neat  and  uncut  upon  a  drawing-room  table. 
Therefore,  O  my  publishers,  though  I  can- 
not address  you  in  neat  verse  like  Mr.  Gay's, 
let  me  pray  you  in  plain,  honest  prose — do  send 
out  a  superabundance  of  copies  to  the  newspa- 
pers, so  that  some,  at  least,  may  find  their  ig- 
nominious, happy  way  to  the  best  and  untidiest 
bookshops  in  the  world. 


OLD  AND  NEW   FLEET  STREET 


^^^15^ 


;  / 


->J 


OLD  AND  NEW  FLEET  STREET 

JOHNSON  and  Boswcll  walked  once  in 
Greenwich  Park,  then  very  decent  coun- 
try, and  even  now  no  despicable  imitation. 
"  Is  not  this  fine?  "  says  the  Doctor;  Bos- 
well  answers,  *' Yes,  sir;  but  not  equal  to  Fleet 
Street";  and  the  Doctor  clinches  the  matter 
with,  "  You  are  right,  sir,  you  are  right." 

Indeed,  Fleet  Street,  brave  show  as  it  is  to- 
day, must  have  been  splendid  then,  seen  through 
old  Temple  Bar,  a  turning,  narrow  thorough- 
fare, with  high-gabled  houses  a  little  overhang- 
ing the  pavements,  those  pavements  where 
crowds  of  gentlemen,  frizzed  and  wigged,  in 
coloured  coats  and  knee-breeches,  went  to  and 
fro  about  their  business.  There  would  come 
strutting  little  Goldsmith  in  the  plum-coloured 
suit,  and  the  sword  so  big  that  it  seemed  a  pin 
and  he  a  fly  upon  it.  There  would  be  Johnson, 
rolling  in  his  gait,  his  vast  stomach  swinging 
before  him,  his  huge  laugh  bellying  out  in  the 
narrow  street,  with  Boswell  at  his  side,  leaning 
round  to  see  his  face,  and  catch  each  word  as 
it  fell  from  his  lips.    There  would  be  Doctor 

153 


154  BOHEMIA   IN  LONDON 

Kenrick,  Goldsmith's  arch  enemy,  for  whose 
fault  he  broke  a  stick  over  the  back  of  Bookseller 
Evans,  and  got  a  pummelling  for  his  pains. 
There  would  be  the  usual  mob  of  young  fellows 
trying  as  gaily  then  as  now  to  keep  head  above 
water  by  writing  for  the  Press. 

And  then  think  of  it  in  a  later  time,  when 
Hazlitt  walked  those  pavements,  with  straight, 
well-meant  strides,  as  befits  a  man  who  has  done 
his  thirty  miles  a  day  along  the  Great  North 
Road.  Perhaps,  as  he  walked,  he  would  be 
composing  his  remarks  on  the  oratory  of  the 
House  of  Commons,  which  he  was  engaged  to 
report  for  Mr.  Perry  of  the  Morning  Chronicle. 
Or  perhaps,  if  it  were  Wednesday,  he  would 
turn  in  at  Mitre  Court,  or  meet  a  slim-legged, 
black-clothed  figure  with  a  beautiful  head, 
Charles  Lamb,  coming  out  of  the  archway,  or 
hurrying  in  there,  with  a  folio  under  his  arm, 
fresh  from  the  stall  of  the  second-hand  book- 
seller. Perhaps  Lamb  might  be  playing  the 
journalist  himself,  writing  jokes  for  Dan  Stu- 
art of  the  Morning  Post.  You  remember: 
"  Somebody  has  said  that  to  swallow  six  cross- 
buns  daily,  consecutively,  for  a  fortnight  would 
surfeit  the  stoutest  digestion.  But  to  have  to 
furnish  as  many  jokes  daily,  and  that  not  for  a 
fortnight,  but  for  a  long  twelvemonth,  as  we 
were  constrained  to  do,  was  a  little  harder  ex- 
action."    Or,  perhaps,  you  might  meet  Cole- 


DOCTOR  JOHNSON'S  HOUSE  IN  GOUGH  SQITARE 


OLD  AND  NEW   FLEET   STREET     155 

ridge  coming  that  way  from  his  uncomfortable 
lodging  in  the  office  of  the  Courier  up  the 
Strand.  Coleridge  knew  the  ills  of  journalistic 
life.  De  Quincey  "  called  on  him  daily  and 
pitied  his  forlorn  condition,"  and  left  us  a  de- 
scription of  his  lodging.  De  Quincey  had 
known  worse  himself,  but  this  was  evil  enough. 
"  There  was  no  bell  in  the  room,  which  for  many 
months  answered  the  double  purpose  of  bed- 
room and  sitting-room.  Consequently  I  often 
saw  him,  picturesquely  enveloped  in  nightcaps, 
surmounted  by  handkerchiefs  indorsed  upon 
handkerchiefs,  shouting  from  the  attics  down 
three  or  four  flights  of  stairs  to  a  certain  *  Mrs. 
Brainb ridge,'  his  sole  attendant,  whose  dwelling 
was  in  the  subterranean  regions  of  the  house. 
There  did  I  often  see  the  philosopher,  with  the 
most  lugubrious  of  faces,  invoking  with  all  his 
might  this  uncouth  name  of  '  Brainb  ridge,'  each 
syllable  of  which  he  intonated  with  long-drawn 
emphasis,  in  order  to  overpower  the  hostile  hub- 
bub coming  downwards  from  the  creaking  press 
and  the  roar  from  the  Strand  which  entered  at 
all  the  front  windows." 

And  then  there  was  the  Tom  and  Jerry  time, 
when  young  bloods,  for  sport,  came  down  at 
night  to  Temple  Bar  to  overturn  the  boxes  of 
the  watchmen  and  startle  their  rheumatic  oc- 
cupants; when  Reynolds  would  leave  his  insur- 
ance office  to  go  to  Jack  Randall's  in  Chancery 


156  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

Lane  to  watch  the  sparring;  when  Pierce  Egan, 
the  first  and  greatest  of  sporting  writers,  would 
slip  along  the  Strand  from  Soho  for  the  same 
splendid  purpose. 

And  then  there  was  the  time  when  Dickens, 
a  very  young  Bohemian,  saw  his  first  sketch, 
"  called  '  Mr.  Minns  and  his  Cousin ' — dropped 
stealthly  one  evening  at  twilight,  with  fear  and 
trembling,  into  a  dark  letter-box  in  a  dark  office 
up  a  dark  court  in  Fleet  Street — appear  in  all 
the  glory  of  print." 

And  then,  long  before,  there  had  been  the 
magical  Elizabethan  Fleet  Street,  when  Ben 
Jonson  and  his  friends  drank  by  Temple  Bar, 
when  Shakespeare  met  Falstaflf  and  Pistol  in 
the  Fleet  Street  taverns,  and  was  probably  con- 
temptuously cut  by  poor  Greene,  as  "  an  up- 
start crow,  beautified  with  our  feathers,  a 
puppet  speaking  from  our  mouths,  an  antick 
garnisht  in  our  colours." 

And  now  there  are  all  these  different  Fleet 
Streets,  one  on  the  top  of  the  other,  dovetailed 
together  indistinguishably.  A  building  here,  an 
old  doorway  there,  the  name  of  a  side  street, 
brings  back  a  memory  of  one  age  or  another. 
This  tavern,  for  example,  was  given  its  name 
as  a  jest  by  a  gay-dressed  fellow  in  long  locks, 
with  a  sword  swinging  at  his  side.  There  is 
the  street  of  the  White  Frairs.  That  building 
was    designed   by   a   subject   of   Queen   Anne. 


OLD  AND  NEW  FLEET  STREET     157 


Lamb  walked  past  while  those  offices  were  still 
cradled  in  their  scaffolding. 

On  a  sunny  morning  there  is  no  jollier  sight 
in  all  the  world  than  to  look  down  Fleet  Street, 
from  a  little  below  the  corner  of  Fetter  Lane 
on  that  side  of  the  road.  The  thoroughfare  is 
thronged  with  'buses — green  for  Whitechapel, 
blue  going  to  Waterloo  Bridge,  white  for  Liver- 
pool Street,  gay  old  survivals  of  the  coaching 
days  with  their  drivers  windblown  and  cheer- 
fully discontented,  the  healthiest-looking  fel- 
lows, who  would  once  have  driven  four-in-hand, 
and  are  too  soon  to  vanish,  and  be  replaced  by 
uniformed  chauffeurs.  Already  the  great  mo- 
tor-'buses  whirl  past  them  down  the  narrow 
street,  and  dwarf  them  by  their  size.  There 
goes  a  scarlet  mail  waggon,  there  a  big  dark 
van  from  some  publishers  up  Paternoster  Row. 


158  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

Barrows  creep  along  the  gutter,  some  selling 
chocolates  "  for  an  advertisement,"  at  a  penny 
a  stick,  some  selling  bananas,  "two  for  lid.," 
the  penny  written  big,  and  the  halfpenny  as 
small  and  apparently  insignificant  as  is  consis- 
tent with  street-selling  honesty.  The  toot-toot 
of  a  motor  bicycle  worries  among  the  other 
noises  like  the  yap  of  a  terrier,  and  a  boy  swings 
past,  round  the  backs  of  the  'buses,  twisting  his 
way  under  the  horses'  noses  with  devilish  enjoy- 
ment, a  huge  sack  of  newspapers  fastened  on  his 
back. 

On  either  side,  above  all  the  flood  of  traffic, 
stand  the  tall,  narrow  houses,  and  the  larger, 
newer  buildings,  with  the  names  of  newspapers 
and  magazines  blazoned  in  brilliant  gold  and 
colour  across  wall  and  window.  The  sunlight, 
falling  across  the  street,  leaves  one  side  in 
shadow,  and  lights  the  other  with  a  vivid  glare, 
as  if  to  make  the  shadowed  side  as  jealous  as 
it  can.  Men  and  women  hurry  on  the  pave- 
ments; typewriter  girls,  office  boys,  news  edi- 
tors, reporters,  writers,  and  artists  in  pen  and 
ink  jostling  each  other  down  the  street.  And  if 
you  look  up  from  the  noise  and  movement,  you 
see  the  grey  dome  of  St.  Paul's,  standing  aloof, 
immutable,  at  the  top  of  Ludgate  Hill.  How 
many  times  has  the  sun  shone  on  that  great  pile 
of  stone,  how  many  lives  have  been  hurried 
through  within  sight  of  its  majesty  and  calm! 


FLEET  STREET 


OLD  AND  NEW   FLEET   STREET     159 

How  many  men  yet  will  untidily  live  out  their 
days,  harassed,  nervous,  never  giving  a  moment 
but  to  the  moment  itself,  while  that  massive 
building  rises,  as  if  in  the  sky,  a  monument  of 
peace  above  the  tumult! 

As  you  watch  the  people  on  the  pavements 
you  will  gradually  learn  to  distinguish  by  their 
manner  of  walking  the  men  who  pass  you  by. 
There  are  the  young  fellows  who  walk  as  hard 
as  if  the  world  depended  on  the  rapid  accom- 
plishment of  their  business;  these  are  the  men 
who  do  not  matter,  who  seek  to  hide  their  un- 
importance from  themselves.  The  real  editor 
of  a  successful  paper  walks  with  less  show  of 
haste,  an  easier  tread,  a  less  undignified  scram- 
ble. He  knows  the  time  he  may  allow,  and  is 
never  in  a  hurry.  It  is  his  subordinates,  the 
fledglings  of  the  Press,  and  the  editors  of  small, 
unsuccessful  rags,  who  are  always,  as  we  north 
countrymen  say,  in  a  scrow.  Poor  fellows  I 
Fleet  Street  life  is  so  heartless,  so  continuous — 
they  must  do  something,  or  it  would  not  know 
that  they  are  there. 

Then  there  are  the  writers  and  illustrators, 
men  of  less  regular  stamp,  men  whom  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  imagine  sitting  at  an  office  desk,  men 
who  walk  a  lazy  kind  of  essay,  with  all  manner 
of  digressions.  These  are  the  unattached,  the 
free  lances,  who  know  that  the  papers  for  which 
they  write  cannot  do  without  them  (it  is  extraor- 


i6o  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

dinary,  though,  how  soon  the  feat  is  accom- 
plished if  they  happen  to  die) ,  and  in  that  proud 
knowledge  saunter  down  to  shake  the  editors  by 
the  hand,  and  ask  what  is  to  be  the  game  this 
week,  or  to  suggest  some  topic  of  their  own. 
There  will  be  Chesterton,  Ursa  Major  Rediv- 
ivus,  rolling,  with  an  armful  of  papers,  from 
side  to  side  of  the  pavement,  cannoning  from 
astounded  little  man  into  astounded  little  man, 
and  chuckling  all  the  time  at  one  or  other  of 
the  half-dozen  articles  that  he  is  making  inside 
that  monstrous  head.  There  will  be  Bart  Ken- 
nedy, a  massive,  large-built  fellow,  walking  the 
pavement  with  the  air  prescribed  by  the  best  of 
drill  sergeants,  "  as  if  one  side  of  the  street  be- 
longed to  him,  and  he  expected  the  other 
shortly."  There  will  be  the  critic  from  the 
country,  striding  down  Bouverie  Street  to  see 
what  impertinent  poets  have  dared  to  send  their 
books  to  his  paper  for  review.  There  a  little 
dark-faced  writer  of  short  stories,  an  opulent 
manufacturer  of  serial  tales,  a  sad-looking 
maker  of  humorous  sketches,  and  a  dexterous 
twister  of  political  jokes  into  the  elaborate 
French  metres  that  make  a  plain  statement  look 
funny.    There  will  be  twenty  more. 

As  you  walk  down  the  street  you  realise  how 
impossible  it  is  to  throw  off  the  consciousness 
of  its  ancient  history.  Over  the  way  is  Mitre 
Court,  where  Lamb's  friends  met  on  Wednes- 


OLD  AND  NEW   FLEET   STREET    16 1 


days,  and  discussed  "  Of  Persons  One  would 
wish  to  have  Seen."  How  impossible  it  was 
even  then  appears  from  the  fact  that  Chaucer's 
name  was  suggested  to  the  Mitre  Courtiers  by 


someone  asking  whether  they  could 
not  "  see  from  the  window  the  Tem- 
ple Walk  in  which  old  Chaucer  used  to  take  his 
exercise." 

Farther  down  there  is  an  alley-way  leading 
to  Salisbury  Court,  where  Richardson  ran  his 
printing  business,  and  built  the  house  that  his 
wife  did  not  like,  and  wrote  his  interminable 
books.  In  the  alley-way  is  the  tavern  where,  at 
the  present  day,  the  Antient  Society  of  Cogers 
meet  to  discuss  the  world  and  its  affairs.  They 
used  to  meet  at  the  Green  Dragon  round  the 
corner,  in  Fleet  Street  again. 

Farther  up,  at  the  top  of  the  street,  close  by 
Temple  Bar,  there  is  the  Cock,  an  admirable 
place,  where  you  are  still  fed  in  high-backed 
pews  and  served  by  English  waiters.    Tennyson 


i62  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

was  so  delighted  by  one  of  them  that  he  wrote 
"  Will  Waterproof's  Lyrical  Monologue,"  from 
which  I  filch  some  livening  verses : 

Oh,  plump  headwaiter  at  the  Cock, 

To  which  I  most  resort, 
How  goes  the  time?    'Tis  five  o'clock, 

Go  fetch  a  pint  of  port. 
And  let  it  not  be  such  as  that 

You  set  before  chance  comers, 
But  such  whose  father  grape  grew  fat 

On  Lusitanian  sununers. 

The  Muse,  the  jolly  Muse  it  is! 

She  answered  to  my  call. 
She  changes  with  that  mood  or  this, 

Is  all  in  all  to  all; 
She  lit  the  spark  within  my  throat, 

To  make  my  blood  run  quicker. 
Used  all  her  fiery  will,  and  smote 

Her  life  into  the  liquor. 

And  hence  this  halo  lives  about 

The  waiter's  hands,  that  reach 
To  each  his  perfect  pint  of  stout. 

His  proper  chop  to  each. 
He  looks  not  like  the  common  breed 

That  with  the  napkin  dally ; 
I  think  he  came,  like  Ganymede, 

From  some  delightful  valley. 

The  Cock  was  of  a  larger  egg 

Than  modern  poultry  drop, 
Step'd  forward  on  a  firmer  leg, 

And  cram'd  a  plumper  crop; 


OLD  AND  NEW  FLEET  STREET     163 

Upon  an  ampler  dunghill  trod, 

Crow'd  lustier  late  and  early, 
Sipt  wine  from  silver,  praising  God, 

And  raked  in  golden  barley. 

A  private  life  v^^as  all  his  joy, 

Till  in  a  court  he  saw 
A  something-pottle-bodied  boy 

That  knuckled  at  the  taw ; 
He  stoop'd  and  clutch'd  him,  fair  and  good, 

Flew  over  roof  and  casement; 
His  brothers  of  the  weather  stood 

Stock  still  for  sheer  amazement. 

But  he,  by  farmstead,  thorpe,  and  spire, 

And  follow'd  with  acclaims, 
A  sign  to  many  a  staring  shire 

Came  crowning  over  Thames. 
Right  down  by  smoky  Paul's  they  bore. 

Till,  where  the  street  grows  straiter, 
One  fix'd  for  ever  at  the  door. 

And  one  became  head  waiter. 

It  reads  as  if  he  had  enjoyed  the  place.  The 
Cock  is  still  above  the  door,  and  it  is  not  im- 
possible to  believe  that  these  waiters,  like  that 
one,  were  brought  in  a  manner  of  their  own 
from  some  hidden  valley  where  the  napkin  is 
the  laurel  of  ambition,  where  men  are  born 
waiters,  as  others  are  born  priests  or  kings. 

Pepys  loved  the  Cock:  "eat  a  lobster  here, 
and  sang  and  was  mighty  merry."  Johnson 
knew  it,  too.  The  tavern  has  been  rebuilt, 
though  all  the  old  fittings  are  retained,  and 


1 64  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

every  day  from  half-past  twelve  till  three  its 
dark,  square  pews  are  full  of  talking,  feeding 
men,  as  in  the  older  days. 

Far  dovi^n  on  the  Fetter  Lane  side  of  the  street 
there  is  the  Cheshire  Cheese,  still  the  dirty- 
fronted,  low-brov^ed  tavern,  w^ith  stone  flasks 
in  the  window^,  that  it  w^as  even  before  Johnson's 
time.  Here,  so  people  say,  Johnson  and  Gold- 
smith used  to  sup  and  be  merry  w^ith  their 
friends.  Perhaps  it  vv^as  the  haunt  of  one  of 
the  talking  clubs  of  v^^hich  neither  of  them  was 
ever  tired.  Although  it  is  nowhere  written  that 
Johnson  crossed  the  threshold,  it  is  very  unlikely 
that  the  man  who  asserted  that  "  a  tavern  chair 
was  the  throne  of  human  felicity"  could  have 
neglected  such  an  opportunity  as  was  his.  For 
he  lived  for  some  time  in  Wine  OfHce  Court,  in 
whose  narrow  passage  is  the  entrance  to  the 
tavern,  and  I  doubt  if  he  could  have  passed  it 
every  day  without  finding  some  reason  for  en- 
couraging it.  Indeed,  with  Macaulayic  logic, 
they  show  you  Johnson's  corner  seat,  the  wall 
behind  it  rubbed  smooth  by  the  broadcloth  of 
innumerable  visitors,  "  to  witness  if  they  lie." 
It  is  a  pleasant  brown  room,  this,  in  the  tavern, 
with  Johnson's  portrait  hanging  on  the  wall, 
old  wooden  benches  beside  good  solid  tables, 
and  a  homely  smell  of  ale  and  toasted  cheese. 
Here  many  of  the  best-known  journalists  make 
a  practice  of  dining,  and  doubtless  get  some 


OLD  AND  NEW   FLEET   STREET     165 

sauce  of  amusement  with  their  meat  from  the 
young  men  and  girls,  literary  and  pictorial, 
destined  to  work  for  the  cheap  magazines  and 
fashion  papers,  who  always  begin  their  profes- 
sional career  by  visiting  the  Cheshire  Cheese 
for  inspiration.  Up  a  winding,  crooked,  dark 
staircase  there  are  other  rooms,  with  long  tables 
in  them  stained  with  wine  and  ale,  and  in  one 
of  them  the  Rhymers'  Club  used  to  meet,  to 
drink  from  tankards,  smoke  clay  pipes,  and  re- 
cite their  own  poetry. 

In  the  passage  into  Wine  Office  Court,  almost 
opposite  the  narrow  entry  of  the  Cheshire 
Cheese,  there  is  a  door  set  back,  that  denies 
admittance  (in  big  printed  letters)  to  all  but 
members  of  the  Press  Club.  This  is  a  sort  of 
substitute  for  the  coflFee-houses  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Goldsmith  used  to  gather  suggestions 
for  the  Bee  at  "The  Temple  Exchange  Coffee 
House  near  Temple  Bar";  and  in  the  fourth 
number  of  that  ill-fated  periodical  he  confessed 
that  he  was  tempted: 

"  To  throw  off  all  connexions  with  taste,  and 
fairly  address  my  countrymen  in  the  same  en- 
gaging style  and  manner  with  other  periodical 
pamphlets,  much  more  in  vogue  than  probably 
mine  shall  ever  be.  To  effect  this,  I  had  thought 
of  changing  the  title  into  that  of  The  Royal 
Bee,  The  Anti-Gal  lie  an  Bee,  or  The  Bee's 
Magazine.    I  had  laid  in  a  stock  of  popular 


1 66  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

topics,  such  as  encomiums  on  the  King  of  Prus- 
sia, invective  against  the  Queen  of  Hungary 
and  the  French,  the  necessity  of  a  militia,  our 
undoubted  sovereignty  of  the  seas,  reflections 
upon  the  present  state  of  affairs,  a  dissertation 
upon  liberty,  some  seasonable  thoughts  upon  the 
intended  bridge  of  Blackfrairs,  and  an  address 
to  Britons;  the  history  of  an  old  woman  whose 
teeth  grew  three  inches  long,  an  ode  upon  our 
victories,  a  rebus,  an  acrostic  upon  Miss  Peggy 
P.,  and  a  journal  of  the  weather.  All  this,  to- 
gether with  four  extraordinary  pages  of  letter- 
press, a  beautiful  map  of  England,  and  two 
prints  curiously  coloured  from  nature,  I  fancied 
might  touch  their  very  souls." 

Reading  that  is  like  listening  to  plans  laid 
down  a  hundred  times  a  year  in  the  Press  Club 
smoking-room.  There  are  the  members,  their 
legs  hung  elegantly  over  the  backs  of  chairs, 
cigars,  briars,  or  meerschaums  between  their 
teeth,  glasses  of  whisky  on  the  small  round 
tables  at  their  sides,  planning  their  baits  for 
the  British  public,  much  as  anglers  observe  the 
sky,  ind  decide  between  the  likely  merits  of  dif- 
ferent artificial  flies.  The  prints  "  curiously 
coloured  from  nature  "  have  still  their  votaries. 
"  A  good  three-colour  plate,  that's  the  very 
thing" — I  can  hear  the  tones  of  the  conspira- 
tor's voice.  Reverse  Goldsmith's  popular  poli- 
tics, abuse  Germany,  fling  in  a  black-and-white 


OLD  AND  NEW   FLEET   STREET     167 

cartoon  of  a  fat  John  Bull  kissing  a  short-skirted 
French  demoiselle,  with  a  poem  about  the  en- 
tente cordiale,  substitute  Labour  Party  for  lib- 
erty— the  picture  is  the  life. 

The  Press  Club  is  a  great  manufactory  of 
comfortable  fame.  It  hangs  caricatures  of  its 
members  round  its  walls.  A  man  who  sees  his 
own  caricature  has  a  foretaste  of  immortality, 
and  of  this  flattery  the  Club  is  generous  to  itself. 
And  you  cannot  ask  a  member  what  such  a  one 
of  his  fellows  does  without  being  made  to  feel 
ashamed  of  your  ignorance  of  his  celebrity. 
With  a  cold  shock  you  learn  that  you  have  fallen 
behind  the  times,  and  that  men  are  famous  now 
of  whom  you  never  heard. 

As  well  as  the  Press  Restaurant,  and  the  more 
noted  taverns,  there  are  plenty  of  places  up  and 
down  the  street  where  famous  men  can  get  their 
beef  and  beer  like  ordinary  people,  but  the  most 
entertaining  places  of  refreshment  are  two  small 
cafes  that  are  exactly  similar  to  many  in  other 
parts  of  the  town.  At  the  top  of  Bouverie  Street 
there  is  a  little  white-painted,  gold-lettered 
shop,  with  cakes  and  pastries  in  the  window. 
You  go  in  there,  and  find  rows  of  chocolate- 
coloured  marble  table-tops,  standing  on 
moulded  iron  legs,  and  surrounded  by  cheap 
wooden  chairs.  There  are  mirrors  on  all  the 
walls,  which  are  hung  with  notices  that  tell  of 
the  price  of  Bovril  by  the  cup,  or  the  cost  of  a 


1 68  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

pound  packet  of  special  coffee.  Girls,  dressed 
in  black,  with  peaked  white  caps  and  spotless 
aprons,  scuttle  about  with  trays,  and  cloths  to 
mop  up  the  tea  which  previous  customers  have 
spilt.  You  may  go  downstairs  into  a  yellow 
atmosphere  of  smoke  and  electric  light,  and  find 
another  room,  full  of  tables  like  the  first,  where 
crowds  of  young  men  are  drinking  tea  and  play- 
ing chess.  If  you  sit  down  here,  and  ask  know- 
ingly to  have  the  moisture  wiped  off  before  you 
lay  your  book  on  the  table,  and  then  have  but- 
tered toast  and  tea  brought  you  by  the  white- 
capped  girl,  and  finally  throw  the  food  into 
yourself,  as  if  by  accident,  while  you  read  your 
book;  if  you  do  all  these  things  as  if  you  were 
born  to  it,  why  then  you  may  feel  yourself  the 
equal  of  any  journalist  in  the  place. 

The  other  little  cafe  is  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  street,  close  by  Fetter  Lane.  A  green,  elab- 
orately fronted  shop,  it  is  slightly  more  expen- 
sive than  the  first,  and  more  luxurious.  The 
tables  hide  their  innocence  under  white  cloths, 
and  you  are  not  given  the  satisfaction  of  watch- 
ing the  swabbing  up  of  the  last  customer's  tea. 
There  is  a  string  band  playing  in  a  recess.  If 
you  wish  to  see  real  live  journalists,  you  may  see 
them  here  drinking  black  coffee  out  of  little 
cups  in  the  mildest  possible  manner. 

This  chapter  is  long  already,  and  a  little  un- 
ruly in  digression,  but  I  cannot  conclude  it  with- 


OLD  AND  NEW  FLEET  STREET    169 

out  mentioning  one  of  the  innumerable  talking 
clubs  that  meet  at  the  taverns  in  the  neighbour- 
hood, just  as  Goldsmith's  friends  used  to  meet 
on  Wednesdays  at  the  Globe,  and  for  the  same 
purpose.  I  was  introduced  to  it  soon  after 
coming  into  Bohemia.  There  was  a  long  table 
down  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  round  it,  on 
benches,  were  seated  about  a  dozen  men,  some 
young,  some  very  young,  few  over  thirty,  with 
beer  mugs  and  spirit  glasses  before  them,  and 
pipes  in  their  mouths.  The  room  already 
reeked  of  the  good,  dirty,  homely  smell  of  to- 
bacco smoke,  although  they  had  but  just  assem- 
bled. There  was  a  big  cigar-box  at  one  end  of 
the  table,  into  which  each  member  dropped  a 
coin  representing  the  amount  of  liquor  he  ex- 
pected to  drink  during  the  evening,  and  the 
amount  he  thought  fitting  for  any  guest  he  had 
happened  to  bring.  A  huge  snuff-box  was  passed 
round  at  intervals.  All  the  members  took 
pinches,  and  sneezed  immediately  afterwards, 
with  apparent  enjoyment.  There  was  a  fierce 
argument  in  progress  when  we  came  in.  One 
of  the  members  had  just  published  a  book,  and 
the  others  were  attacking  his  as  healthy  wolves 
worry  a  lame  one.  "What  do  you  mean 
by  this  in  the  chapter  on  Swinburne?" — "I 
think  you're  a  little  mistaken  in  saying  this 
about  Raphael " — "  Swinburne  has  ceased  to 
count  anyway" — "Who  dared  say  that  Swin- 


170 


BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 


burne  has  ceased  to  count? " — "  Swinburne's 
poetry  will  last  as  long  as  Victor  Hugo's,  and 
Hugo  is  the  greatest  of  the  nineteenth  century  " 
— "  Hugo,  pfal  a  meteor  flash,  no  more    .    .    . 


a  careless  fellow  .  .  .  But  the  question  of 
French  poetry  is  interesting  enough  " — "  Ah  I 
French  poetry  ..."  Half  the  company  turned 
on  the  last  speaker,  and  the  poor  author,  who 
had  been  waiting  to  answer  his  critics,  took  a 
drink  of  beer,  filled  his  pipe,  and  smiled  to  him- 
self. French  poetry  as  matter  for  discussion  led 
them  to  Villon,  and  from  Villon  they  passed  to 


OLD  AND  NEW   FLEET   STREET     171 

the  question  of  capital  punishment  for  trivial 
offences,  and  from  that  to  the  question  whether 
capital  punishment  is  justifiable  at  all.  At  this 
there  was  a  cry  of  faddism,  which  introduced  an 
argument  about  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw.  The  even- 
ing, typical  of  many  others  in  Fleet  Street, 
passed  like  magic,  as  the  talk  swung  from  sub- 
ject to  subject,  and  the  tankards  were  emptied 
and  refilled,  and  the  snuff-box  made  its  rounds. 


SOME  NEWSPAPERS  AND   MAGAZINES 


SOME  NEWSPAPERS  AND  MAGAZINES 

I  MENTIONED  a  little  newspaper  that, 
by  its  payments  for  my  young  essays  and 
exuberantly  juvenile  reviews,  made  it  pos- 
sible for  me  to  adventure  by  myself  and 
take  my  first  lodging  in  Chelsea.  It  was  a  good 
example  of  those  obscure,  high-hearted  little 
rags  that  keep  alive  so  many  of  the  unknown 
writers,  and  help  so  many  youthful  critics  to 
deceive  themselves  into  self-congratulation  at 
the  sight  of  their  own  names  in  capital  letters. 
Your  name  in  capital  letters  at  the  foot  of  a 
review  seems  as  permanent,  as  considerable  a 
memorial  as  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  imagine  it  forgotten.  Indeed,  there  have 
been  plenty  of  people  surprised  by  their  first 
glad  printed  outbursts  into  contented  silence  for 
the  rest  of  their  lives.  For  them,  their  doings 
have  been  forever  consecrated  from  those  of  the 
herd  by  the  memory  of  that  great  Saturday  long 
ago  when  their  names  flaunted  it  upon  a  Fleet 
Street  poster.  Their  air  of  "  having  been 
through  all  that"  is  very  delightful. 
The  little  paper  was  published  once  a  week 

175 


176  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

as  an  organ  of  sane  Liberal  opinion  and  enlight- 
ened criticism  (I  quote  from  memory  of  its  pros- 
pectus). It  had  offices  and  a  brass  doorplate 
in  a  street  off  the  eastern  end  of  the  Strand. 
Well  I  remember  the  thrill  of  passing  that  door- 
plate  as  a  regular  contributor.  Surely,  surely, 
I  thought,  all  the  street  must  know  that  I  was  I, 
the  I  whose  articles  were,  well,  not  the  best  in 
the  paper,  but  certainly  among  the  pleasantest. 
I  used  to  glance  both  ways  along  the  pavement 
before  plunging  in  on  Tuesday  afternoon  to 
learn,  as  a  privileged  counsellor,  what  we  were 
to  announce  to  the  world  on  the  following  Sat- 
urday. 

Up  three  pair  of  stairs  I  used  to  stamp,  quite 
noisily,  perhaps  with  half  an  idea  of  further 
establishing  my  self-confidence;  for  always,  in 
those  early  days,  I  nursed  a  secret  fear  that  each 
article  would  be  the  last,  that  on  the  next  Tues- 
day the  editor  would  frown  upon  my  sugges- 
tions, and  firmly  dismiss  me  from  his  employ. 

How  groundless  was  my  fear!  This  editor 
could  never  have  brought  himself  to  dismiss 
anyone.  When  he  engaged  new  contributors, 
instead  of  dismissing  the  old,  he  used  to  swell 
the  paper  to  make  room  for  them,  without,  alas  I 
increasing  the  circulation.  It  grew  from  eight 
to  twelve  pages,  from  twelve  to  sixteen,  from 
sixteen,  with  a  triumphant  announcement  on  its 
solitary  poster,  that  was  pasted  by  the  editor 


THE   EDITOR 


NEWSPAPERS  AND  MAGAZINES       177 

himself,  when  nobody  was  looking,  on  a  hoard- 
ing outside  the  office,  to  a  magnificent  twenty. 
There  it  rested ;  not  because  its  editor  had  grown 
flint  of  heart,  but  because  he  had  grown  light  of 
purse,  and  been  compelled  to  cede  the  publi- 
cation to  another. 

He  was  the  most  charming  editor  1  ever  met. 
A  little  out  of  breath  after  the  three  pairs  of 
stairs,  I  would  swing  through  the  long  attic  that 
was  piled  waist-high  with  the  past  issues  of  the 
moribund  little  periodical,  through  the  "  ante- 
room," a  small,  scrubby  hole  partitioned  from 
the  attic,  and  furnished  with  an  old  cane-bot- 
tomed chair  for  the  use  of  visitors,  to  be  greeted 
by  a  glad  and  boyish  shout  from  the  chief  him- 
self. An  eager-faced,  visionary  little  man,  he 
lolled  in  an  expensive  swing  chair  before  an 
expensive  roll-top  desk,  both  obviously  bought 
in  the  first  flush  of  editorial  dignity.  A  ciga- 
rette in  a  patent  holder  stuck  jauntily  between 
his  teeth,  and  a  pile  of  white,  unwritten  paper 
stood  before  him  on  his  blotting  pad.  It  was 
delightful  to  see  the  unaffected  joy  of  him  at 
the  excuse  my  arrival  afforded  him  for  talking 
instead  of  writing. 

"Was  he  busy?"  I  would  mischievously  ask. 
"Had  I  not  better  disturb  him  another  time?" 

"Yes,  he  was  busy,  always  busy;  but,"  and 
here  he  would  hurriedly  scuffle  all  his  papers 
into  the  back  of  the  desk,  and  close  his  fountain 


178  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

pen,  "  he  held  it  the  first  duty  of  an  editor  to 
be  ready  to  listen  to  the  ideas  of  his  contrib- 
utors " ;  and  then,  dear  fellow,  he  would  talk 
without  stopping  until,  after  perhaps  a  couple 
of  hours  of  wide,  of  philanthropic  conversation, 
in  which  he  took  all  sides  and  argued  all  opin- 
ions with  equal  skill,  I  would  venture  to  intro- 
duce, as  a  little  thing  that  scarce  deserved  a  place 
in  such  a  talk,  the  subject  of  work  and  the  week's 
issue  of  the  paper.  He  would  sober  instantly 
and  sadly,  like  a  spaniel  checked  in  mid  career. 
"  Well,  what  is  it  you  want  to  write?  An  article 
on  prettiness  in  literature.  Do  it,  my  good  chap, 
do  it.  I  concur  heartily  in  all  your  views.  Pret- 
tiness in  literature  is  an  insipid,  an  effeminate, 
a  damnable,  despicable  thing.  Oh! — I  see — ^you 
intend  rather  to  show  its  merits.  Yes,  yes;  very 
true  indeed.  He  would  surely  be  a  mean-souled 
creature  who  would  ask  for  a  coarser  dish.  Pret- 
tiness in  literature,  delicacy,  daintiness,  poetry, 
the  very  flower  of  our  age,  the  whitebait  of  the 
literary  dinner!  Certainly,  young  man,  cer- 
tainly; a  column  and  a  half,  by  all  means."  And 
then,  after  I  had  asked  for  and  obtained  a  few 
books  for  review  (classics  if  possible,  for  they 
were  at  the  same  time  education  and  a  source  of 
profit) ,  he  would  rattle  off  again  into  his  flow- 
ery talk  of  the  reformation  of  the  world,  that 
must  take  its  beginning  in  the  heart  of  man,  of 
a  scheme  for  workingmen's  clubs,  of  a  project 


NEWSPAPERS  AND  MAGAZINES     179 

for  turning  Socialists  into  sane  Liberals,  such  as 
would  be  regular  buyers  of  the  little  paper,  and 
so  on,  and  so  on,  ending  up  always  with  the  same 
exhortation :  "  My  dear  young  fellow,  do  smoke 
cigarettes  instead  of  that  dirty  cesspot  of  a  pipe. 
Consider:  with  a  cigarette  you  destroy  your  in- 
strument, the  paper  tube,  with  each  enjoyment. 
Whereas  with  the  thing  you  smoke,  you  use  it 
until  it  is  saturated  with  iniquity  and  become  a 
very  still  of  poisonous  vapours.  Well,  well, 
good-afternoon.  Let  me  have  the  article  on 
Thursday  morning,  and  come  and  see  me  again 
next  Tuesday." 

That  was  in  the  early  days  of  my  connection 
with  him.  But  after  a  few  months  I  was  ad- 
mitted a  member  of  the  chosen  band  who  met 
on  Thursday  morning,  and,  with  paper  and  ink 
provided  free,  lay  prone  on  the  back  numbers  in 
the  long  attic,  and  practically  wrote  the  whole 
paper,  improving  the  work  of  other  contrib- 
utors, curtailing  their  articles,  filling  them  up 
with  jokes  or  parentheses,  till  they  swelled  or 
shrank  to  the  required  space,  and  in  their  own 
special  columns,  over  their  own  names,  in- 
structed the  universe  on  everything  under 
heaven,  and  sometimes  made  metaphysical  ex- 
cursions even  there. 

We  used  to  meet  at  three  after  a  Soho  or 
Fleet  Street  lunch,  and  wrote  continuously  until 
we  fell  asleej),  or  until  the  work  was  done.    The 


i8o  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

office  boy,  who  loved  these  days  because  on  them 
we  made  a  point  of  calling  him  Mr.  Sub-Editor, 
went  whistling  to  and  fro,  carrying  big  envel- 
opes to  the  printers  round  the  corner,  and  bear- 
ing mighty  jugs  of  beer,  from  the  tavern  a  few 
doors  off,  to  the  perspiring  men  of  genius  who 
lay  and  laughed  and  toiled  on  the  waste  of  back 
numbers  in  the  attic  room. 

It  was  a  spirited  little  paper.  We  used  to  at- 
tack everybody  who  was  famous,  excepting  only 
Mr.  Kipling,  Mr.  Sturge  Moore,  Mr.  Yeats, 
and  Mr.  Laurence  Binyon.  Each  of  these  four 
had  his  passionate  admirers  on  the  staff,  and  was 
consequently  exempt  from  criticism.  We  had 
a  gay  way  with  any  writer  on  whose  merits  we 
had  no  decided  opinions.  Two  of  us  would  put 
our  heads  together,  and  the  one  write  a  eulo- 
gium,  the  other  a  violent  attack.  One  would 
exalt  him  as  a  great  contributor  to  English  liter- 
ature, the  other  jeer  at  him  as  a  Grub  Street 
hack.  The  two  reviews,  numbered  one  and  two, 
would  be  published  side  by  side.  It  was  an  en- 
tertaining, admirable  system.  In  matters  other 
than  literature,  we  had  our  fling  at  everybody, 
except  the  select,  the  very  select  few  to  whom 
our  editor  attributed  the  mysterious  "  sane  Lib- 
eralism "  with  which  he  was  himself  inspired. 
But  our  happiest  moments  were  when  one  of  our 
company  had  written  a  book.  We  were  all 
young  and  all  ambitious.     The  most  energetic 


NEWSPAPERS  AND  MAGAZINES     i8i 

and  diplomatic  of  us  contrived  to  coax  a  pub- 
lisher into  issuing  one  book,  or  even  two,  every 
year,  and,  of  course,  we  looked  to  our  own  organ 
for  a  vigorous  backing.  We  got  it.  On  the  day 
of  publication  would  appear  large-typed,  efflo- 
rescent articles,  headed  "  At  Last  a  Novelist," 
or  "  A  Second  Balzac,"  or  "  An  Essayist  of 
of  Genius,"  or  "The  True  Spirit  in  Poetry,"  and 
one  of  the  staff  would  redden  with  pleasure  as  he 
read  the  article  that  referred  to  him,  and  wonder 
if  this  miraculous,  this  precocious,  prodigious, 
world-shaking  genius  were  indeed  himself. 

Alas!  I  doubt  whether  any  article  of  ours  ever 
sold  a  single  book,  for  we  had  no  circulation. 
Indeed,  so  notorious  did  our  non-success  be- 
come, even  among  ourselves,  though  we  dis- 
creetly tried  to  veil  our  knowl-  . 
edge  from  each  other,  thati%^^ 
when  the  editor 
had  arranged  with 
three  new  poets, 
whom  I  did  not 
know  by  sight,  to  write 
poetry  for  us,  and  I  saw 
a  man  in  a  coffee-house 
reading  the  paper,  I  went 
boldly  up  to  him  and  asked, 
"  Are  you  Mr.  So-and-So, 
Mr.  So-and-So,  or  Mr.  So- 
and-So?" 


i82  BOHEMIA   IN  LONDON 

"  I  am  not,"  he  replied. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  you  bought  that  paper 
and  are  not  a  contributor  to  it?  "  The  thing  was 
a  miracle. 

He  actually  had,  and  it  was  so  delightful  to 
find  anyone  outside  ourselves  who  read  what  we 
had  written,  that  I  made  friends  with  him  at 
once,  and  have  remained  in  friendship  with  him 
ever  since.    But  I  believe  he  was  the  only  one. 

It  was  natural  that  the  editor,  who  was  also 
the  proprietor,  should  at  last  be  compelled  to 
abandon  a  paper  so  meanly  supported.  The  man 
who  took  it  over  made  a  different  thing  of  it. 
Its  youth  and  jollity  and  energy  were  left  be- 
hind, and  it  did  its  best  to  become  a  staid  paper 
of  the  world.  The  new  editor  was  of  those 
Hazlitt  classed  as  "  a  sort  of  tittle-tattle — diffi- 
cult to  deal  with,  dangerous  to  discuss."  He 
disliked  all  suggestion  that  had  not  come  from 
himself.  It  was  necessary,  if  an  idea  were  to  be 
adopted,  to  flatter  him  into  thinking  it  his  own. 
I  never  knew  him  write  an  amusing  thing,  and 
I  only  once  heard  him  say  one,  and  then  it  was 
by  accident.  He  had  assembled  us,  and  an- 
nounced that  in  future  we  should  not  be  allowed 
to  sign  our  articles.  The  very  joy  of  life  was 
gone,  but  he  said  he  wanted  the  paper  to  have 
an  individual  personality.  We  protested,  and 
he  replied  quite  seriously:  "That  is  all  very 
well.    But  if  all  you  fellows  sign  your  articles, 


NEWSPAPERS  AND  MAGAZINES     183 

what  becomes  of  my  personality?  "  I  forgave 
him  everything  for  that. 

This  is  not  a  chapter  on  newspaper  editors, 
but  I  cannot  go  on  to  talk  of  magazines  without 
paying  some  tribute  to  the  ingenious  adven- 
turers, who,  more  successful  than  those  two, 
manage  to  keep  their  little  rags  afloat.  It  is 
amazing  how  many  small  papers,  without  any 
circulation,  are  yet  published  week  by  week. 
The  secret  history  of  the  struggles  with  the 
printers,  who  insolently  refuse  to  work  when 
their  bills  are  too  long  overdue,  and  the  battles 
with  the  contributors,  who  prefer  to  be  paid 
than  otherwise,  is  as  entertaining  as  the  intrigues 
of  courtiers  to  save  themselves  from  downfall 
and  disgrace. 

There  is  a  story  in  Fleet  Street  now  about  a 
little  paper  devoted  to  mild  reform — vegeta- 
rianism, no  cruelty  to  dogs,  anti-vaccinationism, 
and  the  like — whose  editor  managed  to  keep 
the  paper  and  himself  alive  on  subsidies  from 
religious  faddists.  From  his  office  at  the  end  of 
an  alley  he  could  see  his  visitors  before  they  ar- 
rived, and  when  he  saw  a  likely  victim  in  some 
black-coated,  righteous  old  gentleman,  he 
opened  a  Bible  and  laid  it  on  his  desk.  Then 
he  knelt  down  at  his  chair.  When  the  old  gen- 
tleman had  climbed  the  stairs,  and  had  inquired 
for  him  of  the  office  boy,  he  heard  from  the 
inner  room  a  solemn,  earnest  voice :    "  O  Lord, 


1 84  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

soften  Thou  the  heart  of  some  rich  man,  that  of 
his  plenty  he  may  give  us  wherewithal  to  carry 
on  the  good  work  that  this  small  paper  does 
in  Thy  name  ..."  and  so  on.  He  would  lift 
a  finger  to  the  boy.  "Hushl"  he  would  say; 
"  your  master  is  a  good  man,"  and  presently  go- 
ing in,  when  the  prayer  was  ended,  would  write 
out  a  cheque  at  least  as  liberal  as  it  was  ill- 
deserved. 

The  Jonquil  is  a  famous  example.  It  was 
edited  by  a  man  called  Beldens,  who  had  a  little 
money,  but  not  much.  He  contrived  to  retain  his 
writers  by  a  most  ingenious  appeal  to  their  gam- 
bling instincts.  Every  Saturday  all  the  cheques 
were  accurately  made  out  and  delivered  to  the 
contributors.  But  these  soon  found  that  there 
was  never  more  money  to  the  credit  of  the  paper 
in  the  bank  than  would  pay  the  first  three  or 
four  of  the  cheques  presented.  The  rest  were 
returned  dishonoured.  The  result  was  not  un- 
amusing,  for  Beldens  had  chosen  a  bank  in  Ful- 
ham,  while  his  office  was  in  Covent  Garden. 
Every  Saturday  at  the  appointed  time  all  the 
contributors  used  to  attend,  with  hansoms,  spe- 
cially chosen  for  the  fleetness  of  their  horses, 
waiting  in  a  row  outside.  Beldens  would  come, 
smiling  and  urbane,  into  the  outer  office,  with 
the  bundles  of  little  pink  slips.  As  soon  as  they 
had  been  passed  round  there  would  be  a  wild 
scuffle  of  genius  on  the  stairs,  the  dishevelled 


NEWSPAPERS  AND  MAGAZINES     185 

staff  would  rush  out  of  the  door,  leap  into  their 
hansoms,  and  race  pell  mell  for  the  bank,  the 
fortunate  first  arrivals  dividing  v^ith  their  cab- 
bies the  moneys  that  their  respective  efficiencies 
had  achieved. 

The  larger  new^spapers,  and  the  popular 
monthlies,  are  not  important  in  Bohemia,  ex- 
cept as  means  of  earning  money  or  getting  on 
in  the  v^orld.  We  flatter  ourselves  that  they 
w^ould  be  dull  v^ithout  us,  but  their  life  is  not 
ours.  The  periodicals  that  really  matter  to  us 
are  of  a  different  kind,  and  we  run  them  our- 
selves. They  are  quarterlies,  or  annuals,  never 
perennials.  Few  survive  three  issues,  and  those 
that  live  long  do  no  honour  to  their  old  age. 
For  the  glory  of  these  papers  is  their  youth.  A 
dozen  names  spring  to  mind:  The  Yellow 
Book,  The  Savoy,  The  Pageant,  all  of  the  time 
when  Arthur  Symons,  Aubrey  Beardsley,  Max 
Beerbohm,  Frederick  Wedmore  were  not  yet 
known  and  discussed  by  the  laggard  public;  The 
Butterfly,  The  Dial  of  Shannon  and  Ricketts, 
The  Dome  of  Laurence  Housman,  W.  B.  Yeats, 
Laurence  Binyon,  and  another  brood  of  writers; 
down  to  The  Venture,  that  lived  two  years,  1904 
and  1905,  and  then  died  like  the  rest.  And  at 
the  present  moment  at  least  three  new  dreams 
are  being  crystallised  into  the  disillusionment  of 
print,  and  will  appear  and  fail  next  year. 


1 86  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

These  magazines  are  not  like  the  "  Literary 
Souvenirs "  and  the  pocket  books  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century,  to  which  they  have  been 
often  compared.  They  have  no  delicious  little 
engravings  by  popular  artists  of  lovers  reading 
books  together,  nor  are  they  full  of  "  pieces "  of 
prose  and  verse  collected  from  the  most  oblig- 
ing of  the  well-known  authors  of  their  day. 
They  are  written  and  illustrated  by  men  more 
famous  in  Bohemia  than  elsewhere.  Bohemia 
is  the  one  country  whose  prophets  find  most 
honour  at  home.  They  are  read  lovingly  by 
their  writers,  looked  at  by  their  illustrators,  and 
discussed  by  all  the  crowd  of  young  women  who, 
by  dressing  in  green  gowns  without  collars, 
wearing  embroidered  yokes,  scorning  the  Daily 
Mail,  and  following  the  fortunes  of  the  studios, 
keep  in  the  forefront  of  literary  and  artistic 
progress. 

The  Germ  is  the  original  of  all  these  under- 
takings. From  time  to  time  a  set  of  young  men, 
like  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  grow  beyond  the  stage 
of  sedulous  aping,  and  find  that  they  are  pro- 
ducing something  in  literature  and  art  that,  not 
being  a  facile  imitation  of  an  established  mode, 
is  difficult  to  sell.  They  want  a  hearing,  and 
find  their  pictures  refused  by  the  exhibitions  as 
insults  to  the  traditions  of  art,  and  their  poems 
and  stories  rejected  by  the  ordinary  magazines 
and  reviews  as  incomprehensible  rubbish.   Half 


NEWSPAPERS  AND  MAGAZINES     187 

a  dozen  poets,  painters,  and  prosemen  put  their 
heads  together,  and  plan  a  magazine  that  is  not 
to  be  as  others,  gross,  vapid,  servile  to  a  vulgar 
or  sentimental  taste,  but  a  sword  to  cut  upwards 
through  the  conventional  fog  to  the  brightness 
and  glory  of  a  new  constellation  of  ideals.  You 
must  be  one  of  them  to  appreciate  their  pictures, 
and  have  read  what  they  have  read  to  enjoy  their 
writings.  They  hear  "  different  drummers," 
and  all  who  are  not  for  them  are  against  them. 
It  is  in  such  ventures  that  the  men  who  are  later 
to  be  accepted  with  applause  make  their  first 
appearance.  "The  Blessed  Damozel  "  was  pub- 
lished in  The  Germ  when  few  knew  anything  of 
the  Pre-Raphaelites.  The  Germ  was  a  com- 
mercial failure,  but  who  has  not  heard  of 
Rossetti? 

Few  printed  things  are  more  delightful  or 
more  troublesome  to  produce  than  one  of  these 
free-lance  miscellanies.  The  editors  (there  is 
usually  a  committee  of  at  least  three)  go  about 
in  pride,  conscious  of  the  vitality  of  their  move- 
ment, scornful  of  popular  ignorance,  and  hope- 
ful in  their  secret  hearts  that  they  are  making 
history  as  others  did  before  them.  They  carry 
with  them  through  the  studios  the  glorious  feel- 
ing that  "  there  is  something  in  the  air."  They 
spend  whole  nights  planning  together,  examin- 
ing a  dozen  different  kinds  of  papers,  to  find  one 
suitable  alike  for  blocks  and  text,  comparing 


1 88  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

specimens  from  twenty  printers.  All  is  pleas- 
ant for  them  until  their  friends,  outside  the  par- 
ticular set  that  work  together  and  believe  in 
each  other,  begin  to  offer  contributions.  It  is  a 
difficult  thing  to  tell  a  man  that  his  work  is  not 
good  enough,  when  he  is  no  younger  than  your- 
self;  it  is  an  insult  to  suggest  that  he  belongs  to 
an  older  school,  that  his  is  a  dying  day,  and  that 
you  cannot  join  the  evening  and  the  morning 
lights  in  this  paper  of  yours  that  is  to  represent 
the  dawn.  But  it  must  be  done;  and  it  is  likely 
that  thenceforth  there  is  a  studio  you  must  not 
visit,  an  injured  man  whom  you  must  skilfully 
avoid  in  taking  your  place  at  the  Soho  dinner- 
tables. 

That  is  one  of  the  difficulties;  another,  even 
more  serious,  is  of  finance.  It  is  a  sad  thing  that 
financiers  are  not  often  constructed  like  poets, 
eager  to  spill  their  best  for  the  sweetness  and 
joy  of  spilling  it.  It  is  hard  that  a  man  of  money 
can  seldom  be  persuaded  to  run  a  magazine  ex- 
cept with  a  view  to  material  profit.  Even  if  the 
enhanced  price  of  The  Germ  makes  him  think 
that  another  Garland  of  Youth,  another  Miscel- 
lany sounding  another  bugle,  will,  if  better  ad- 
vertised, pay  (loathsome  word!)  from  the  first, 
he  assumes  command  of  your  fair  vision,  as  if  of 
a  department  store,  inserts  some  terrible  verses 
by  a  friend  of  his,  and  turns  your  dream  to  dust 
before  your  eyes.    I  was  connected  with  one  such 


NEWSPAPERS  AND  MAGAZINES     189 

performance,  run  for  sordid  gain  by  a  financier, 
and  it  was  a  miserable  affair.  The  stupid  fellow 
saw  money  in  poetry  and  pictures,  as  he  might 
have  seen  it  in  corn  or  beef.  He  knew  nothing, 
and  it  was  as  if  the  magazine  had  been  edited 
by  a  five-shilling  piece.  Each  new  contributor 
that  he  enrolled  spun  him  in  a  new  direction. 
One  suggested  a  second,  and  the  second  sug- 
gested a  third,  so  that  the  prose,  the  poetry,  and 
the  pictures  sounded  the  whole  gamut  of  intel- 
lectual notes,  and  the  original  projectors  retired 
in  disgust,  to  the  financier's  surprise.  Of  all 
such  magazines,  as  he  ruefully  claimed  for  it,  it 
was  the  most  varied.  It  was  also  the  least 
successful.  It  represented  money  instead  of 
youth. 

No ;  you  have  not  only  to  catch  your  financier, 
but  to  tame  him.  He  must  understand  that  he 
is  no  more  than  the  means  to  the  end,  and  be 
proud  of  his  subjection,  happy  never  to  see  his 
money  again,  and  content  to  have  contributed 
his  insignificant  aid  to  the  progress  of  literature 
and  art.  When  such  a  man  is  discovered,  which 
is  not  often,  there  is  joy  in  Bohemia.  The 
models,  gossiping  as  they  go,  carry  the  great 
news.  In  a  dozen  studios  men  paint  as  their 
caprice  takes  them,  and  in  a  dozen  lodgings 
imps  of  freedom  ride  a  dozen  pens.  The 
shackles  are  oflf  at  last,  that  is  the  cry,  and  some- 
thing fresh  and  extravagant  is  the  result;  some- 


I  go 


BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 


thing  that  overshoots  the  mark  by  its  own  vig- 
our, but  shoves  by  its  direction  that  there  is  a 
mark  to  be  shot  at,  at  which  people  have  not 
aimed  before. 


WAYS  AND  MEANS 


WAYS  AND  MEANS 

A  LITTLE  time  ago  there  was  a  great 
outcry  against  what  was  called  "  lit- 
erary ghosting,"  a  fraudulent  passing 
off  of  the  work  of  unknown  writers 
under  more  famous  names.  There  was  a  corre- 
spondence in  a  literary  paper  that  betrayed  how 
novels  were  written  in  the  rough  by  inexperi- 
enced hands  under  the  guidance  of  hardened 
manufacturers  of  serials;  and,  indeed,  when  we 
consider  only  how  many  prominent  athletes  of 
no  particular  literary  ability  are  able  to  publish 
books  on  their  profession,  it  is  obvious  that  a 
good  deal  of  this  kind  of  business  must  be  done. 
Indeed,  in  one  form  or  another,  ghosting  is  one 
of  the  usual  ways  by  which  the  unfortunate 
young  writer  sustains  himself  in  Grub  Street, 
or  Bohemia,  or  whatever  else  you  like  to  call 
that  indefinite  country  where  big  longings  and 
high  hopes  are  matched  by  short  purses  and 
present  discomforts. 

Many  a  man  has  been  saved  from  what 
seemed  a  descent  into  the  drudgeries  of  clerk- 
ship by  the  different  drudgery  of  writing,  say, 
the  reminiscences  of  an  admiral,  the  history  of  a 

193 


194  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

parish,  or  innumerable  short  reviews,  for  which 
other  people  got  the  credit.  And  Richard  Sav- 
age, in  his  witty  pamphlet  called  "  An  Author 
to  Be  Let,"  betrays  that  the  abuse  is  not  only  of 
our  day.  Iscariot  Hackney  of  that  book  con- 
fesses that: 

"  Many  a  time  I  wrote  obscenity  and  profane- 
ness,  under  the  names  of  Pope  or  Swift.  Some- 
times I  was  Mr.  Joseph  Gay,  and  at  others 
Theory  Burnet,  or  Addison.  I  abridged  his- 
tories and  travels,  translated  from  the  French 
what  they  never  wrote,  and  was  expert  at  finding 
out  new  titles  for  old  books.  When  a  notorious 
thief  was  hanged,  I  was  the  Plutarch  to  preserve 
his  memory;  and  when  a  great  man  died,  mine 
were  his  Remains,  and  mine  the  account  of  his 
last  will  and  testament."  That  is  the  whole 
trade  put  in  a  paragraph. 

Nowadays  the  matter  has  been  reduced  to 
system.  There  are  men  who  are  paid  to  write 
all  the  reviews  in  a  paper,  and  farm  out  the 
work  piecemeal,  or  even  get  ambitious  boys  and 
girls  to  do  it  for  them,  by  way  of  apprentice- 
ship, paying  them  a  meagre  wage.  There  are 
agents  who  make  a  living  by  supplying  ghost- 
written books  to  publishers  who  keep  up  for 
appearance  sake  the  pretence  of  not  being  in  the 
know.  They  get  their  twenty,  forty,  fifty  pounds 
a  volume,  and  have  them  written  by  impecu- 
nious Bohemians  to  whom  they  pay  the  weekly 


WAYS  AND  MEANS  195 

salary  of  a  junior  clerk.    Here  is  a  true  account 
of  a  youthful  ghost. 

He  was  a  poet,  and  in  those  days  a  bad  one. 
He  carried  more  poor  verses  than  good  money 
in  his  pocket.  And  one  day,  when  he  had  little 
more  than  a  few  coppers  and  some  penny 
stamps,  he  happened  to  see  an  advertisement  for 
"  a  young  and  experienced  writer  with  a  thor- 
ough knowledge  of  athletics."  He  kept  the  ap- 
pointment suggested  by  the  newspaper,  and 
found  a  mean  house  in  one  of  the  southern  sub- 
urbs. A  herd  of  lean  fellows  were  waiting  in  a 
dirty  passage,  and  presently  a  cheerful,  business- 
like little  man  came  out,  and  chose  him  with  one 
companion  as  the  likeliest-looking  of  the  lot. 
They  were  set  to  write,  at  tables  in  the  corners 
of  an  undusted,  cat-haunted  room,  specimen 
chapters  of  a  book  on  croquet.  They  were  both 
appointed,  and  the  other  man,  an  old  hand,  bor- 
rowed five  shillings  in  advance.  Next  day,  when 
the  young  fellow  arrived  in  the  morning,  he 
found  that  his  colleague  was  there  before  him, 
drunk,  holding  the  garden  railings,  and  shout- 
ing blasphemies  at  a  bedraggled  cat  that  slunk 
about  the  waste  scrap  of  ground  behind  them. 
The  agent  held  up  the  drunkard  to  him  as  a 
warning,  told  him  that  sobriety  was  the  spirit  of 
success,  and  that,  as  he  had  the  job  to  himself, 
he  would  be  allowed  to  gain  extra  experience  by 
doing  the  other  man's  work  as  well  as  his  own. 


196  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

He  was  young,  enthusiastic,  glad  to  have  an 
opportunity  of  working  at  all.  In  two  months 
he  had  finished  six  books,  that  still  annoy  him 
by  showing  their  bright-lettered  covers  on  the 
railway  bookstalls.  He  wrote  on  an  average 
between  two  and  four  thousand  words  a  day. 
At  last,  one  day  when  he  was  working  in  an 
upper  room  of  the  agent's  house,  the  little 
creature  came  upstairs  and  saw  fit  to  congrat- 
ulate him.  "  You  are  doing  very  well  indeed," 
he  said,  "  for  one  so  unaccustomed  to  literary 
labour."  That  brought  an  end  to  the  engage- 
ment. He  left  immediately,  lest  he  should  be 
unable  to  refrain  from  throwing  an  inkpot  at 
the  agent's  head.  It  is  in  its  way  rather  fun  to 
be  suddenly  an  authority  on  subjects  of  which 
you  knew  nothing  till  you  sat  down  to  write 
about  them.  And  it' is  very  good  practice  in 
journalism — though  it  is  always  easier  to  write 
when  you  are  ignorant  than  when  you  know  too 
much;  you  have  a  freer  hand.  But  for  a  poet 
to  hear  such  work  called  literary  labour!  That 
was  too  much.  He  never  returned,  and  the 
agent  was  left  sorrowing  for  the  loss  of  an  indus- 
trious hack. 

Of  course,  the  young  man,  you  will  say, 
should  never  have  stooped  to  such  work.  He 
ought  to  have  borrowed,  or  persuaded  his  land- 
lady to  let  him  live  until  his  good  luck  should 
bring  the  settlement  of  her  bills.    But  he  could 


WAYS  AND  MEANS  197 

not  borrow.  There  are  some  unfortunates  who 
cannot;  1  hate  borrowing  myself.  And  it  is  an 
awful  thing  to  be  without  money  and  miserably 
afraid  of  tiding  over  evil  straits  on  somebody 
else's.  Some  there  are,  brave,  high-souled  fel- 
lows, who  could  borrow  the  world  to  play  at 
ball,  and  never  feel  the  responsibility,  whereas 
others  are  uneasy  and  not  themselves  with  a  sin- 
gle shilling  that  does  not  belong  to  them.  Some 
seem  to  live  on  credit  as  naturally  as  they 
breathe,  and  I  remember  the  surprise  of  one  of 
these:  "What!  You  don't  owe  anybody  any- 
thing! Good  Lord!  man,  lend  me  half  a  sov- 
ereign! " 

People  who  by  some  misfortune  of  nature  are 
unable  to  risk  dishonesty  by  borrowing  without 
having  certain  means  of  repayment  are  reduced 
to  all  kinds  of  unhappy  expedients,  and  some- 
times even  to  dying,  like  poor  Chatterton,*  in 
order  to  make  both  ends  meet.  Of  him  John- 
son could  say,  "  This  is  the  most  extraordinary 
young  man  that  has  encountered  my  knowledge. 
It  is  wonderful  how  the  whelp  has  written  such 
things,"  and  yet,  after  three  months'  fight  among 
the  papers,  living  on  almost  nothing,  and  writ- 
ing home  to  his  people  brave,  proud  letters  about 
his  success,  to  keep  them  from  anxiety,  he  spent 
three  days  without  food,  and  then  killed  him- 
self with  arsenic,  rather  than  accept  from  a  land- 
lady the  food  for  which  he  doubted  his  ability 

•In  Brook  Street,  Holbom. 


198  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

to  repay  her.  The  most  terrible  detail  in  the 
tragedy  was  the  memorandum  that  lay  near  him 
when  he  died,  and  showed  that  over  ten  pounds 
were  owed  him  by  his  publishers.  Ah,  mel  in 
the  days  when  I  read  that  story  ten  pounds 
seemed  opulence  for  a  lifetime.  It  seemed  a 
cruel  and  impossible  thing,  as  all  cruelty  seems 
when  we  are  young,  that  one  who  was  owed  so 
much  should  yet  starve  into  suicide. 

This  is  one  of  the  worst  hardships  of  painter 
or  writer.  His  money,  even  when  earned,  is  as 
intangible  as  the  dawn.  It  is  gold,  but  he  may 
not  handle  it;  real,  but  a  dream.  He  must  live, 
while  he  does  his  work,  on  air,  and  then,  when 
the  picture  hangs  in  the  drawing-room  of  the 
purchaser,  and  the  article  has  been  printed,  pub- 
lished, and  forgotten,  he  must  wait,  perhaps  for 
months,  perhaps  for  years,  and  sometimes,  in- 
deed, until  he  is  passed  into  another  world  where 
he  can  have  no  opportunity  of  spending  it,  for 
the  money  that  is  his.  It  is  not  until  he  is  a 
success,  or  at  least  no  longer  an  anonymous  Bo- 
hemian, that  his  money  is  paid  in  advance,  or 
upon  the  completion  of  his  labour.  Little  won- 
der that  when  at  last  it  comes,  it  comes  as  a  sur- 
prise, and  sends  him  gaily  into  bright  extrava- 
gance that  leaves  him  with  a  purse  as  empty  as 
before. 

I  have  heard  people  say  that  all  the  wild,  ir- 
regular struggle  for  existence  that  was  known 


WAYS  AND  MEANS  199 

by  Goldsmith,  by  Johnson,  by  old  Roberto 
Greene,  has  faded  away  from  the  literary  life. 
They  say  that  now,  young  men,  top-hatted, 
frock-coated,  enter  the  offices  of  newspapers, 
earn  comfortable  salaries,  write  their  novels  or 
whatever  they  may  be  in  their  spare  hours,  and 
arrive,  neat,  unruffled  as  Civil  Servants,  by  mere 
process  of  time  at  their  success.  It  is  not  so. 
"  Once  a  sub-editor  always  a  sub-editor,"  said 
a  very  successful  one,  who  had  given  up  hope  of 
succeeding  at  anything  else.  He  was  well 
known,  his  books  had  sold  better  than  better 
books,  and  his  portrait  had  been  often  in  the 
papers;  but  that  was  not  the  success  he  had 
wanted,  nor  a  success  that  was  worth  having,  and 
he  was  honest  enough  to  admit  it  to  himself. 
The  men  who  really  care  for  their  art,  who  wish 
above  all  things  to  do  the  best  that  is  in  them,  do 
not  take  the  way  of  the  world  and  the  regular 
salaries  of  the  newspaper  offices.  They  stay  out- 
side, reading,  writing,  painting  for  themselves, 
and  snatching  such  golden  crumbs  as  fall  within 
their  reach  from  the  tables  of  publishers,  edi- 
tors, and  picture-buyers.  They  make  a  living, 
as  it  were,  by  accident.  It  is  a  hard  life  and  a 
risky;  it  is  deliciously  exciting  at  first,  to  leap 
from  crag  to  crag,  wherever  a  slight  handhold 
will  preserve  you  from  the  abyss,  but  the  time 
soon  comes  when  you  are  tired,  and  wonder, 
with  dulled  heart  and  clouded  brain,  is  it  worth 


200  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

while  or  no?  Those  who  are  strong  enough  to 
continue  are  given  their  own  souls  to  carry  in 
their  hands,  and  those  who  admit  defeat,  sur- 
render them,  and,  knowing  in  their  hearts  that 
they  have  sold  themselves,  hide  their  sorrow  in 
a  louder  clamour  after  an  easier  quest. 

The  jolliest  of  the  irregulars,  in  spite  of  the 
anxiety  of  their  life,  are  those  who  carry  on  a 
guerrilla  warfare  for  fame  and  a  long  struggle 
for  improvement,  never  having  been  caught  or 
maimed  by  the  newspaper  routine,  or  by  the 
drudgery  of  commercial  art  work.  (For  artists 
as  well  as  writers  have  an  easy  way  to  a  liveli- 
hood, which  they  also  must  have  strength  to 
resist.)  Some  men  live  as  free  lances  by  selling 
their  articles  to  such  papers  as  are  willing  to 
admit  their  transcendent  worth,  and  ready  to 
pay  some  small  nominal  rate,  a  guinea  a  thou- 
sand words  perhaps,  for  the  privilege  of  print- 
ing them.  Many  live  by  reviewing,  getting  half 
a  dozen  books  a  week  from  different  papers, 
reading  or  skimming  them,  and  writing  as  long 
a  paragraph  as  the  editor  will  allow  on  each 
volume.  The  artists  coax  dealers  into  buying 
small  pictures  at  a  cheap  rate,  satisfying  their 
pride  by  contemplation  of  the  vastly  larger  price 
at  which  their  purchasers  seem  to  value  them  as 
soon  as  they  appear  in  the  glamour  of  the  win- 
dow. Others  again,  artists  and  writers,  too — 
these,  perhaps,  the  most  sincere  and  admirable 


WAYS  AND  MEANS  201 

of  the  lot — refuse  any  degradation  of  their  art, 
and  live  hand  to  mouth  by  any  sort  of  work  that 
offers.  There  was  one  man  who  wrote  poems  in 
the  intervals  of  stage  carpentry,  and  another 
who  made  dolls  while  compiling  a  history  of 
philosophy.  Some,  indeed,  seem  able  to  live  on 
nothing  at  all,  and  these  are  more  cheerful  than 
the  rest  whose  stomachs  are  less  accommodating. 
There  are  compensations  to  poverty,  and  one 
of  them  is  extravagance.  Goldsmith  would  not 
so  have  enjoyed  the  pomp  of  his  bloom-coloured 
suits  and  his  gorgeous  Brick  Court  chambers  if 
he  had  not  known  an  earlier  and  different  life: 

"  Where  the  Red  Lion,  staring  o'er  the  way, 
Invites  each  passing  stranger  that  can  pay ; 
Where  Calvert's  butt  and  Parson's  black  champagne 
Regale  the  drabs  and  bloods  of  Drury  Lane; 
There  in  a  lonely  room,  from  bailiffs  snug, 
The  Muse  found  Scroggen  stretched  beneath  a  rug; 
A  w^indow,  patched  vi^ith  paper,  lent  a  ray 
That  dimly  showed  the  state  in  which  he  lay; 
The  sanded  floor,  that  grits  beneath  the  tread; 
The  humid  wall  with  paltry  pictures  spread; 
The  royal  game  of  goose  was  there  in  view. 
And  the  twelve  rules  the  Royal  Martyr  drew; 
The  Seasons,  framed  with  listing,  found  a  place. 
And  brave  Prince  William  showed  his  lamp-black  face ; 
The  morn  was  cold ;  he  views  with  keen  desire 
The  rusty  grate  unconscious  of  a  fire : 
With  beer  and  milk  arrears  the  frieze  was  scored. 
And  five  crack'd  teacups  dress'd  the  chimney  board ; 
A  night-cap  decked  his  brows  instead  of  bay, 
A  cap  by  night — a  stocking  all  the  day !  " 


202  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

Johnson  enjoyed  his  pension  and  all  that  it 
meant  the  more  for  having  known  a  time  when 
he  spent  the  night  hours  with  Richard  Savage 
walking  round  and  round  St.  James's  Square, 
for  want  of  a  lodging,  inveighing  cheerfully 
against  the  Ministry,  and  "  resolving  they  would 
stand  by  their  country." 

The  moments  of  opulence  when  they  come  are 
the  brighter  gold  for  the  grey  anxiety  that  has 
gone  before.  They  make  extravagance  a  joy  in 
itself,  and  even  change  the  distresses  of  the  past 
into  a  charming  memory. 

I  had  lived  once  for  over  a  week  on  a  diet  of 
cheese  and  apples — cheap  yellow  cheese  and 
apples  at  twopence  or  a  penny  halfpenny  a 
pound.  A  friend,  also  impoverished,  was  shar- 
ing my  expenses  and  my  diet,  and  slept  in  a 
small  room  in  the  same  house.  Our  two  sleep- 
ing boxes,  for  they  were  no  more,  were  on  the 
ground  floor,  and  a  large,  fat  postman,  our  land- 
lord, slept  in  the  basement  underneath.  On  the 
Wednesday  of  the  second  week,  by  the  three 
o'clock  post,  came  a  letter  for  my  friend,  from 
a  literary  agent,  containing  a  cheque  for  twenty- 
five  pounds — ^TWENTY-FIVE  POUNDS!  It  is  an 
amazing  fact,  but  I  do  believe  the  tears  came 
into  our  eyes  at  the  sight  of  that  little  slip  of 
magenta-coloured  paper.  We  shook  hands 
hysterically,  and  then — remembering  that  the 
bank  closed  at  four — unshaved  as  we  were,  with- 


WAYS   AND   MEANS  203 

out  collars,  with  baggy  trousers,  we  took  a  han- 
som for  the  town.  The  cheque  was  cashed,  and 
that  somehow  seemed  a  marvel,  as  the  five- 
pound  notes  and  the  gold  were  slid  over  the 
counter  in  a  way  most  astonishingly  matter  of 
fact.  We  went  out  of  the  bank  doors  with  a  new 
dignity,  paid  the  cabby,  and  walked  the  Strand 
like  giants.  It  became  quite  a  question  what 
place  was  best  worthy  of  the  honour  of  enter- 
taining us  to  tea.  Wherever  it  was — I  fancy  a 
small  cafe — it  did  its  duty,  and  we  sat,  refreshed 
and  smoking  (new  opened  packets  of  the  best 
tobacco)  while  we  planned  our  evening. 

At  half-past  six  we  went  up  to  Soho,  and 
crossed  Leicester  Square  with  solemnity,  as  be- 
fitted men  with  an  aim  in  life,  and  that  so  phil- 
anthropic as  to  dine  better  that  night  than  ever 
in  their  lives  before.  There  was  no  undignified 
hurry  about  our  walk,  but  there  was  no  linger- 
ing. I  was  rebuked  for  glancing  at  the  window 
of  a  print  shop,  and  in  my  turn  remonstrated 
equally  gravely  with  him  for  dallying  over  some 
pretty  editions  at  a  bookseller's  in  Shaftesbury 
Avenue. 

We  dined  at  one  of  our  favourite  little  res- 
taurants: we  dined  excellently,  drank  several 
bottles  of  wine,  and  had  liqueur  glasses  of  rum 
emptied  into  our  coffees.  We  smoked,  paid  the 
bill,  and  went  out  into  the  narrow  Soho  street. 
Just  opposite,  at  the  other  side,  where  we  could 


204  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

not  help  seeing  it  as  we  hesitated  on  the  pave- 
ment, was  another  of  our  favourite  feeding 
places.  The  light  was  merry  through  the  win- 
dows, the  evening  was  young,  and — without 
speaking  a  word,  we  looked  at  each  other,  and 
looked  at  each  other  again,  and  then,  still  with- 
out speaking,  walked  across  the  street,  went  in 
at  the  inviting  door,  and  had  dinner  over  again 
— an  excellent  dinner,  good  wine,  and  rum  in 
coffee,  as  before. 

Remember  the  week's  diet  of  apples  and 
cheese  before  you  condemn  us.  We  argued  it 
out  as  we  smoked  over  our  second  coffees,  and 
convinced  ourselves  clearly  that  if  our  two  din- 
ners had  been  spread  evenly  and  with  taste  over 
our  last  ten  most  ill-nourished  days,  we  should 
not  yet  have  had  the  food  that  honest  men  de- 
serve. That  being  so,  we  stood  upon  our  rights, 
and  gave  clear  consciences  to  our  grateful 
stomachs. 

On  our  way  home  we  met  an  old  acquaint- 
ance, whose  hospitality  a  few  days  before  would 
have  been  as  manna  from  heaven,  but  whose 
port,  good  though  it  was,  was  now  almost  super- 
fluous. We  reached  our  lodgings  at  three  in  the 
morning,  and  my  last  memory  of  the  festival  is 
that  of  my  friend,  usually  a  rather  melancholy 
man,  sitting  on  my  bed  drumming  with  his  feet 
upon  the  floor,  and  singing  Gaelic  songs  at  the 
top  of  his  voice,  to  a  zealous  accompaniment  on 


WAYS  AND  MEANS  205 

my  penny  whistle.  From  below  came  a  regular 
grunting  monotone — the  landlord  snoring  in 
bed.  Presently  there  was  a  deep  thud  that  star- 
tled us  for  a  moment  into  quiet.  We  listened, 
and  almost  at  once  the  snoring  boomed  again, 
as  the  postman  slumbered  on  the  floor  where  he 
had  fallen.  Then  we  continued  our  minstrelsy. 
It  is  an  up-and-down  life,  my  friends — it  is 
indeed. 


TALKING,  DRINKING  AND  SMOKING 


(WITH  A  PROCESSION  OF  DRINKING  SONGS) 


TALKING,  DRINKING  AND  SMOKING 

(WITH   A   PROCESSION   OF   DRINKING 
SONGS) 

TALKING,  drinking,  and  smoking  go 
better  together  than  any  three  other 
pleasant  things  upon  this  earth.  And 
they  are  best  enjoyed  in  company, 
which  is  almost  as  much  as  to  say  that  they  are 
not  best  performed  at  home.  Individually  they 
may  be — a  pipe  over  your  own  fire,  a  glass  of 
wine  close  by  the  elbow  of  your  own  easy-chair, 
a  quiet,  comfortable  talk  with  your  particular 
friend,  whose  opinions  you  know  before  they  are 
uttered,  are  severally  very  delightful.  But  if 
good  liquor,  talk,  and  smoke  are  to  be  enjoyed 
to  the  utmost,  why,  then,  get  you  half  a  dozen 
honest  fellows  about  you,  with  no  particular 
qualification,  and  have  your  evening  out.  Go 
to  a  tavern  or  a  coffee-house,  where  you  will  be 
left  to  yourselves.  Be  free  from  womenfolk, 
with  their  pestilential  seriousness,  or  more  ag- 
gravating flippancy.  Get  you  and  your  company 
into  a  cosey  room,  with  a  bright  fire  and  a  closed 

ao9 


2IO  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

door,  where  you  may  be  free  men  before  the 
universe.  Then  may  your  words  express  the 
mood  you  feel,  the  liquor  hearten  you,  and  the 
smoke  soothe  you  in  argument;  and  if  with  that 
you  are  not  happy,  why,  then,  the  devil  fly  away 
with  you  for  a  puritanical,  melancholiac  spoil- 
sport, whom  I  would  not  see  with  my  book  in  his 
hands,  no,  not  for  four  shillings  and  sixpence  on 
the  nail. 

No,  sir,  if  you  cannot  be  happy  so,  why,  you 
are  a  fellow  unclubable,  unsociable,  a  creature 
without  human  instincts — no  true  man.  I'll 
have  none  of  you,  and  if  your  name  come  up  for 
election  at  any  of  our  clubs,  I'll  blackball  you 
with  all  my  heart,  and  wish  the  ball  were  twice 
as  black  and  twice  as  big. 

Not  that  I  am  a  friend  to  drunkenness  and 
bestiality:  far  from  it.  Only  children  lick  honey 
from  the  spoon.  But  spread  honey  with  bread 
and  butter,  and  season  good  liquor  with  mirth 
and  company,  talk  and  tobacco,  and  either  is  a 
gift  from  the  gods.  Nor  do  tavern  brawls,  those 
itinerant  extravagances,  stand  higher  in  my  fa- 
vour, dear  though  they  are  to  the  irregulars  who 
practise  them.  To  sup  with  ale  at  the  Cheshire 
Cheese,  to  drink  at  the  Punch  Bowl,  at  the  Green 
Dragon,  at  the  Mitre,  at  the  Cock,  at  the  Gre- 
cian, at  the  George,  at  the  Edinburgh — in  short, 
to  beat  the  bounds  of  every  tavern  in  Fleet 
Street,  from  Ludgate  Circus  to  the  Strand,  that 


TALKING,   DRINKING,   SMOKING    211 

is  a  festival  too  peripatetic  to  be  comfortable,  an 
undertaking  too  serious  to  be  lighthearted. 

But  you,  sir,  who  smile  at  the  thought  of  beer 
— or  is  it  port  or  sherry,  or  perhaps  good,  rol- 


licking, stout-flavoured  rum? — who  dream  joy- 
fully of  brown-walled  rooms,  of  tables  worn 
and  polished,  covered  with  stained  rings  where 
the  bounty  of  innumerable  glasses  has  over- 
flowed their  brims,  whose  eyes  are  alight  with 


212  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

the  fire  of  the  fine  things  you  are  ready  to  say, 
whose  pipe  is  even  now  in  your  hands,  you  are 
a  man  of  another  sort  and  the  right  one.  You 
do  not  forget  that  the  first  and  proudest  of  man's 
inventions  when  his  reason  came  to  him  was  a 
club,  that  Bacchus  was  the  favourite  of  the  an- 
cient gods,  and  Silenus  the  most  lovable  of  the 
sub-divinities.  You  remember  that  the  Scandi- 
navian heaven  was  a  club,  Valhalla,  where  the 
heroes  met  to  enjoy  themselves,  and  fight  with 
swords  even  as  we  fight  with  arguments,  and 
after  the  fighting  to  drink,  and  sing,  and  be  good 
fellows  one  to  the  other.  You  regret  each  cen- 
tury for  the  merry,  companionable  evenings  you 
have  missed  by  living  in  another  time.  You, 
and  you  alone,  will  read  with  the  right  under- 
standing, with  a  smile  of  sympathetic  memory, 
with  no  lemon-juiced  condemnation  tightening 
your  lips. 

What  an  illustrious  company  is  ours:  Ben 
Jonson,  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  Herrick,  Con- 
greve — the  list  would  fill  the  book.  Cromwell 
was  not  against  us,  and  even  Doctor  Johnson 
(although  he  did  drink  port,  bottle  by  bottle, 
in  his  own  company — a  swinish,  inhuman  pro- 
cedure) wrote  for  us  our  philosophy; 

"  Hermit  hoar  in  solemn  cell, 

Wearing  out  life's  evening  grey, 
Strike  thy  bosom  sage,  and  tell, 
What  is  bliss,  and  which  the  way? 


TALKING,   DRINKING,   SMOKING     213 

"  Thus  I  spoke,  and  speaking  sighed, 
Scarce  repressed  the  starting  tear, 
When  the  hoary  sage  replied, 

*  Come,  my  lad,  and  drink  some  beer.*  " 

Once,  after  an  evening  spent  in  a  tavern  with 
a  mob  of  honest,  open-hearted  fellows,  I  sat  in 
my  chair  at  home,  before  going  to  bed,  thinking 
of  the  older  time.  I  was  smoking  the  last  pipe, 
the  mystical  last  pipe  that  is  always  full  of 
dreams,  and  seemed  suddenly  to  see  all  ages 
together,  and  the  Bohemians  of  all  time  coming 
through  the  walls  into  my  room. 

Ben  Jonson,  pimple-nosed,  strong-headed,  ap- 
peared sitting  in  an  easy-chair,  as  if  in  the  Devil 
room  at  the  Apollo,  reading  a  paper  sent  him 
from  his  friend  Master  Beaumont,  who  was 
busy  with  Master  Fletcher  in  the  country,  writ- 
ing a  play.    He  read  aloud : 

"  Methlnks  the  little  wit  I  had  is  lost 
Since  I  saw  you ;  " 
(honest  fellow,  Master  Beaumont,  generous  mind!) 

"  for  wit  is  like  a  rest 
Held  up  at  tennis,  which  men  do  the  best 
With  the  best  gamesters.     What  things  have  we  seen 
Done  at  the  Mermaid!  heard  words  that  have  been 
So  nimble  and  so  full  of  subtle  flame. 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whence  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest. 
And  had  resolved  to  live  a  fool  the  rest 
Of  his  dull  life;  there  where  there  hath  been  thrown 
Wit  able  enough  to  justify  the  town 


214  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

For  three  days  past:  with  that  might  warrant  be 

For  the  whole  city  to  talk  foolishly, 

Till  that  were  cancelled ;  and  when  that  was  gone, 

We  left  an  air  behind  us,  which  alone 

Was  able  to  make  the  next  two  companies 

Right  witty;  though  but  downright  fools,  more  wise." 

"  Aha,  they  know  their  Ben.    They  know  him." 
He  fell  to  murmuring  over  his  own  verses : 

"  Welcome  all  who  lead  or  follow 
To  the  Oracle  of  Apollo — 
Here  he  speaks  out  of  his  pottle. 
Or  the  tripos,  his  tower  bottle: 
All  his  answers  are  divine. 
Truth  itself  doth  flow  in  wine. 
Hang  up  all  the  poor  hop-drinkers, 
Cries  old  Sim,  the  king  of  skinkers; 
He  the  half  of  life  abuses 
That  sits  watering  with  the  Muses. 
Those  dull  girls  no  good  can  mean  us; 
Wine  it  is  the  milk  of  Venus, 
And  the  poet's  horse  accounted ; 
Ply  it,  and  you  all  are  mounted. 
'Tis  the  true  Phoebian  liquor, 
Cheers  the  brain,  makes  wit  the  quicker; 
Pays  all  debts,  cures  all  diseases, 
And  at  once  three  senses  pleases. 
Welcome  all  who  lead  or  follow 
To  the  Oracle  of  Apollo." 

"  A  very  charming  rhyme  in  praise  of  grape 
liquor,"  I  was  about  to  say,  "  but  a  little  too 
scornful  of  ale.  Ale  is  a  good  drink,  and  hearty, 
the  parent  of  as  much  good  prose  as  ever  Span- 
ish wine  made  good  verse."    I  was  about  to  say 


TALKING,  DRINKING,   SMOKING    215 

this,  when  I  saw  a  gaily  dressed  little  man,  with 
a  tankard  in  one  hand  and  a  sheaf  of  paper  in 
the  other,  come  walking  through  my  bookcase. 
I  knew  Mr.  Gay  at  once,  and  guessed  that  he 
had  come  to  battle  for  the  best  of  drinks.  But, 
before  he  could  speak,  a  pretty  little  parson  fel- 
low skipped  into  the  room,  bowed  unctuously  to 
Ben,  shot  this  verse  at  him,  and  withdrew: 

"  Ah,  Ben, 
Say  how  or  when 
Shall  we  thy  guests 
Meet  at  those  lyric  feasts, 
Made  at  the  Sun, 
The  Dog,  the  Triple  Tunf 
Where  we  such  clusters  had 
As  made  us  nobly  wild,  not  mad ; 
And  yet  each  verse  of  thine 
Outdid  the  meat,  outdid  the  frolic  wine." 

"Herrickl"  cried  Ben  joyfully,  but  he  was 
gone,  and  little  Mr.  Gay  was  bowing  in  his 
place.  Placing  his  dripping  tankard  on  a  new 
volume  of  poems  that  lay  on  my  table,  he  bowed 
respectfully  to  my  distinguished  guest,  and  then, 
laying  his  left  hand  easily  upon  his  sword-hilt, 
sang  merrily  and  with  a  provocative,  mischiev- 
ous air: 

"  Whilst  some  in  epic  strains  delight, 
Whilst  other  pastorals  invite. 

As  taste  or  whim  prevail: 
Assist  me,  all  ye  tuneful  Nine; 
Support  me  in  the  great  design, 

To  sing  of  nappy  ale. 


2l6 


BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 


"  Some  folks  of  cyder  make  a  rout, 
And  cyder's  well  enough  no  doubt, 

When  better  liquors  fail; 
But  wine,  that's  richer,  better  still, 
Ev'n  wine  itself  (deny  't  who  will), 
Must  yield  to  nappy  ale. 

"  Rum,  brandy,  gin  with  choicest  smack 
From  Holland  brought,  Batavia  arrack, 

All  these  will  nought  avail 
To  cheer  a  truly  British  heart, 
And  lively  spirits  to  impart, 

Like  humming,  nappy  ale. 

"  Oh !  whether  I  thee  closely  hug 
In  honest  can  or  nut-brown  jug, 

Or  in  the  tankard  hail; 
In  barrel,  or  in  bottle  pent, 
I  give  the  generous  spirit  vent, 
Still  may  I  feast  on  ale. 

"  But  chief  when  to  the  chearful  glass 
From  vessel  pure  thy  streamlets  pass. 
Then  most  thy  charms  prevail ; 

Then,  then,  I'll  bet,  and  take 

the  odds 
That  nectar,  drink  of  heathen 
gods. 

Was  poor  compar'd 
to  ale. 


^<it 


"  Give  me  a  bumper,  fill  it  up. 
See  how  it  sparkles  in  the  cup, 
Oh,  how  shall  I  regale! 
Can  any  taste  this  drink  divine 
And  then  compare  rum,  brandy,  wine. 
Or  ought  with  nappy  ale?  " 


TALKING,   DRINKING,   SMOKING     217 

He  paused  for  a  moment  to  take  a  long  drink 
from  the  tankard,  which  he  replaced  on  the 
poetry  book.  Then,  delicately  wiping  his  lips, 
which  were  curved  with  satisfaction,  he  went  on : 


Inspir'd  by  thee,  the  warrior  fights, 
The  lover  wooes,  the  poet  writes, 

And  pens  the  pleasing  tale; 
And  still  in  Britain's  isle  confess'd 
Nought  animates  the  patriot's  breast 

Like  generous,  nappy  ale. 


"  High    Church    and 
Low    oft    raise    a 
strife, 
And     oft     endanger 
limb  and  life. 
Each  studious  to 
prevail ; 
Yet  Whig  and  Tory,  opposite 
In  all  things  else,  do  both  unite 
In  praise  of  nappy  ale. 


O  blest  potation!  still  by  thee. 

And  thy  companion  Liberty, 

Do   health   and 

mirth  prevail ; 

Then   let   us  crown 

the  can,  the  glass, 

And  sportive  bid  the 

minutes  pass    «ii 
In  quaffing  nappy  ale. 


2i8  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

*  Ev'n  while  these  stanzas  I  indite, 
The  bar  bell's  grateful  sounds  invite 

Where  joy  can  never  fail! 
Adieu!  my  Muse,  adieu!     I  haste 
To  gratify  my  longing  taste 

With  copious  draughts  of  ALE." 

He  had  scarcely  finished,  and  was  emptying 
the  tankard,  when  John  Keats  appeared  (I  had 
not  seen  him  coming). 

"  Shades  of  poets  dead  and  gone," 

he  chanted,  coughing  painfully,  but  keeping  a 
smiling  face,  that  made  kind  old  Ben  Jonson 
wince : 

"  Shades  of  poets  dead  and  gone, 
What  elysium  have  ye  known, 
Happy  field  or  mossy  cavern, 
Choicer  than  the  Mermaid  Tavern?  " 

"Aha I  You  are  a  friend  for  me,  sirl"  cried 
Gay,  and  taking  him  familiarly  by  the  arm, 
walked  off  with  him  through  the  writing  desk. 
They  were  not  ten  yards  away  before  they  were 
walking  apart,  quarrelling  vigorously,  which 
was  puzzling,  till  I  remembered  that  Keats  was 
no  drinker  of  nappy  ale,  but  so  passionate  a  lover 
of  wine  that  he  once  covered  all  the  inside  of  his 
mouth  and  throat  with  cayenne  pepper,  in  order 
to  enjoy  "  the  delicious  coolness  of  claret  in  all 
its  glory." 


TALKING,   DRINKING,   SMOKING     219 

"Who  is  that  young  man?"  asked  Ben;  but 
before  I  could  answer  him  there  was  the  stump, 
stumping  of  a  wooden  leg,  and  little  William 
Davies  stood  before  us.  He  was  laughing  mer- 
rily, and  sang: 

"  Oh,  what  a  merry  world  I  see 

Before  me  through  a  quart  of  ale. 
Now  if  sometimes  that  men  would  laugh, 

And  women  too  would  sigh  and  wail 

To  laugh  or  wail's  an  easy  task 
For  all  who  drink  at  my  ale-cask."  * 

"  Ale,  all  ale,"  interrupted  Ben  Jonson. 
"  Why  do  they  sing  of  ale?  " 

"  Here's  whisky  for  you  thenl"  cried  Davies, 
and  sang  mournfully: 

"  Whisky,  thou  blessed  heaven  in  the  brain, 

Oh,  that  the  belly  should  revolt, 
■  To  make  a  hell  of  after  pain, 

And  prove  thy  virtue  was  a  fault  I 

"  Did  ever  poet  seek  his  bed 

With  a  sweet  phrase  upon  his  lips 
Smiling — as  I  laid  down  my  head, 
Pleased  after  sundry  whisky-sips? 

"  I  pitied  all  the  world:  alas! 

That  no  poor  nobodies  came  near, 
To  give  to  them  my  shirt  and  shoes. 
And  bid  them  be  of  goodly  cheer. 

•  From  "  New  Poems."    By  William  Davies.    Published  by  Mr. 
Elkin  Mathews. 


220  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

"  A  blessed  heaven  was  in  the  brain ; 

But  ere  came  mom  the  belly  turned 
And  kicked  up  hell's  delight  in  pain — 

This  tongue  went  dry,  this  throat  it  burned. 


"Oh,  dear!  oh,  dear!  to  think  last  night 
The  merriest  man  on  earth  was  I, 
And  that  I  should  awake  this  mom. 

To  cough  and  groan,  to  heave  and  sigh !  "  * 


"  Nay,  nay,"  said  Ben,  surprised,  "  I  know 
nothing  of  all  that." 

There  are  some,  who  do  not  understand  true 
enjoyment,  will  tell  you  that  rules  spoil  convivial 
meetings,  and  that  a  merry  company  becomes  a 
dull  committee  as  soon  as  it  is  called  a  club.  Do 
not  believe  them:  the  precedents  are  all  against 
them.  Unless  you  have  a  club  to  regulate  the 
times  and  seasons  of  your  mirth  you  are  likely 
enough  to  be  merry  when  your  friends  are  sad, 
and  melancholy  when  they  are  joyful.  Whereas, 
if  all  the  week  you  have  a  pleasant  conscious- 
ness that  on  Wednesday,  say,  or  Thursday  night 
there  will  be  jollity,  you  go  to  the  tavern  in 
the  proper  spirit,  and  smile  before  you  turn  the 
door.  And  as  for  rules,  why,  rules  are  half  the 
fun.    You  remember  Ben  Jonson's  own: 

•  From  "  New  Poems." 


TALKING,   DRINKING,  SMOKING      221 

Idiota,  insulsus,  tristis,  turpis,  abesto. 

Eruditi,  urbani,  hilares,  honesti,  adsclscuntor ; 

Nee  lectae  feminae  repudiantor. 

De  discubitu  non  contenditor. 

Vina  purls  fontibus  ministrantor  aut  vapulet  hospes. 

Insipida  poemata  nulla  recitantor. 

Amatoriis  querells,  ac  suspiriis  liber  angulus  esto. 

Qui  foras  vel  dicta,  vel  facta  eliminet,  eliminator. 


There  are  some  of  them,  and  are  they  not  admir- 
ably contrived?  (Though  I  suspect  the  third, 
and  the  one  about  a  corner  for  lovers,  were  dic- 
tated by  some  momentary  caprice  of  the  poet 
himself,  contrary  as  they  are  to  all  the  best  prac- 
tice in  England.  In  France  it  has  always  been 
the  thing:  the  student's  mistress  hears  her  lord 
discuss;  but  here,  until  very  lately,  men  have 
talked  and  smoked  to  themselves.)  The  neat 
compliment  to  the  members  insinuated  by  the 
first  and  second — no  objectionables  admitted, 
and  the  whole  company  able  to  congratulate 
themselves  as  learned,  urbane,  jolly,  and  honest 
men — is  delightful.  There  was  to  be  no  squab- 
bling for  places;  the  wine  was  to  be  kept  at  a 
good  level  quality  by  the  simplest  means;  no 
fool  to  interrupt  the  flow  of  talk  with  his  taste- 
less verse,  and  all  reporters  to  be  expelled.  What 
evenings  those  must  have  been  I  It  is  easy  to 
imagine  the  door  open  to  each  newcomer  primed 
up  with  the  hope  of  happiness,  glancing  about 
to  see  which  of  his  friends  were  there  before 


222  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

him,  and  bowing  to  receive  a  nod  from  the  great 
Ben.  And  late  at  night,  when  all  was  over,  can 
you  not  envy  them,  strolling,  rolling,  tumbling, 
strutting  out  into  the  moonlight  of  old  Temple 
Bar,  with  their  heads  full  of  wholesome  wit  and 
wine? 

Then,  for  another  set  of  rules,  remember  those 
"  enacted  by  a  Knot  of  Artizans  and  Mechan- 
ics," as  Addison  read  them  "  upon  the  wall  in  a 
little  Alehouse." 

"  I.  Every  Member  at  his  first  coming  shall 
lay  down  his  Two  Pence. 

"  II.  Every  Member  shall  fill  his  Pipe  out 
of  his  own  Box. 

"  III.  If  any  Member  absents  himself  he 
shall  forfeit  a  Penny  for  the  Use  of  the  Club, 
unless  in  Case  of  Sickness  or  Imprisonment. 

"  IV.  If  any  Member  swears  or  curses,  his 
Neighbour  may  give  him  a  Kick  upon  the 
Shins. 

"  V.  If  any  Member  tells  Stories  in  the  Club 
that  are  not  true,  he  shall  forfeit  for  every  third 
Lie  a  Halfpenny. 

"  VI.  If  any  Member  strikes  another  wrong- 
fully, he  shall  pay  his  Club  for  him. 

"  VII.  If  any  Member  brings  his  Wife  into 
the  Club,  he  shall  pay  for  whatever  she  drinks 
or  smoaks. 

"  VIII.  If  any  Member's  wife  comes  to  fetch 


TALKING,  DRINKING,   SMOKING    223 

him  home  from  the  Club,  she  shall  speak  to  him 
without  the  Door. 

"  IX.  If  any  Member  calls  another  Cuckold, 
he  shall  be  turned  out  of  the  Club. 

"X.  None  shall  be  admitted  into  the  Club 
that  is  of  the  same  Trade  with  any  Member 
of  it. 

"  Xr.  None  of  the  Club  shall  have  his  Clothes 
or  Shoes  made  or  mended  but  by  a  Brother 
Member. 

"XII.  No  Non-juror  shall  be  capable  of  be- 
ing a  Member." 

The  humorous  third  rule,  the  somewhat  dis- 
concerting fifth,  the  cynical  eighth,  all  these  axe 
pleasant,  but  the  tenth  and  twelfth  contain  more 
club  wisdom  than  all  the  others  put  together. 
For  the  tenth  rule  secures  to  each  member  the 
right  to  speak  on  one  subject  with  authority. 
Silenced,  for  example,  in  an  argument  on  knife- 
grinding,  the  carpenter  can  solace  himself  by 
bragging  of  his  exclusive  knowledge  of  joinery, 
a  solid  comfort  that  would  vanish  if  a  rival  car- 
penter should  cross  the  threshold — for  then,  at 
the  moment  of  the  poor  fellow's  discomfiture, 
when  still  weak  from  the  conflict  with  the 
grinder  of  knives,  his  supremacy  in  his  own  busi- 
ness might  be  usurped,  and  he  be  left  nincom- 
poop forever.  And  as  for  the  twelfth  rule,  it  is 
the  neatest  conceived  of  safeguards  against  fad- 


224  BOHEMIA   IN  LONDON 

dists.  It  is  as  if  we  in  one  of  our  clubs  were  to 
prohibit  vegetarians  or  anti-vaccinationists.  It  is 
a  charming  testimony  to  the  beef  and  beer  san- 
ity of  the  members  (a  shoemaker  and  a  tailor 

from   internal    evidence. How   ingratiating 

looks  "Brother  Member"  on  the  paperl)  who 
wrote  the  rules. 

It  is  impossible  to  get  away  from  the  rules  of 
the  old  clubs  before  listening  for  a  moment  to 
those  that  governed  "  the  moral  philosophers,  as 
they  called  themselves,  who  assembled  twice  a 
week,  in  order  to  show  the  absurdity  of  the  pres- 
ent mode  of  religion  and  establish  a  new  one  in 
its  stead."  Their  rules,  as  Goldsmith  says,  "  will 
give  a  most  just  idea  of  their  learning  and  prin- 
ciples." Some  of  his  own  clubs  cannot  have 
been  very  different. 

"  I.  We  being  a  laudable  society  of  moral 
philosophers,  intends  to  dispute  twice  a  week 
about  religion  and  priestcraft;  leaving  behind 
us  old  wives'  tales,  and  following  good  learning 
and  sound  sense:  and  if  so  be  that  any  other 
persons  has  a  mind  to  be  of  the  society,  they 
shall  be  entitled  so  to  do,  upon  paying  the  sum 
of  three  shillings,  to  be  spent  by  the  company  in 
punch. 

"  II.  That  no  member  get  drunk  before  nine 
of  the  clock,  upon  pain  of  forfeiting  three  pence, 
to  be  spent  by  the  company  in  punch. 


TALKING,  DRINKING,  SMOKING     225 

"  III.  That,  as  members  are  sometimes  apt  to 
go  way  without  paying,  every  person  shall  pay 
sixpence  upon  his  entering  the  room;  and  all 
disputes  shall  be  settled  by  a  majority,  and  all 
fines  shall  be  paid  in  punch. 

"  IV.  That  sixpence  shall  be  every  night 
given  to  the  president,  in  order  to  buy  books  of 
learning  for  the  good  of  the  society:  the  presi- 
dent has  already  put  himself  to  a  good  deal  of 
expense  in  buying  books  for  the  club,  particu- 
larly the  works  of  TuUy,  Socrates,  and  Cicero, 
which  he  will  soon  read  to  the  society. 

"  V.  All  them  who  brings  a  new  argument 
against  religion,  and  who  being  a  philosopher 
and  a  man  of  learning,  as  the  rest  of  us  is,  shall 
be  admitted  to  the  freedom  of  the  society,  upon 
paying  sixpence  only,  to  be  spent  in  punch. 

"  VI.  Whenever  we  are  to  have  an  extraor- 
dinary meeting,  it  shall  be  advertised  by  some 
outlandish  name  in  the  newspapers. 

"  Sanders  MacWild,  President. 

"  Anthony  BlewiT,  Vice-President 

his  X  mark 
"William  TuRPIN,  Secretary." 

What  clubs  there  must  have  been;  and  yet 
why  regret  them?  What  clubs  there  are  to-day; 
what  clubs  there  will  be  until  man  changes  his 
nature,  and  becomes  an  animal  that  does  not 
talk,  or  drink,  or  smoke.     If  you,  O  honest,  not 


226  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

inhuman,  reader,  ever  find  your  way  into  Bo- 
hemia, my  best  wish  for  you  is  a  club,  a  com- 
pany of  fellows  as  jolly  as  yourself,  a  good,  cosey 
room,  a  free-burning  hearth,  plenty  of  whatever 
tobacco  smokes  best  in  your  pipe,  of  whatever 
liquor  flows  easiest  in  your  gullet,  of  what- 
ever talk,  of  poetry,  of  romance,  of  pictures, 
sounds  sweetest  in  your  ears.  Or,  if  you  have 
been  in  Bohemia,  and  now  are  far  away,  or 
grown  old,  may  this  chapter  suggest  the  evenings 
of  your  youth  and  (but  it  would  need  to  be  better 
written)  bring  back  something  of  the  old  good- 
fellowship  that  made  those  evenings  so  hearty  a 
delight. 


OLD  AND  NEW  HAMPSTEAD 


OLD  AND  NEW   HAMPSTEAD 

IT  is  only  lately  that  Hampstead  has  become 
an  integral  part  of  London ;  only  a  century 
since  one  could  be  stopped  by  highway- 
men on  one's  way  into  town  from  the 
Heath.  It  used  to  be  the  most  beautiful  country 
within  reach  of  the  city,  and  so  a  proper  place 
for  "  shoemakers'  holidays  "  and  for  retirement. 
Even  now  you  may  go  to  sleep  behind  a  bush  in 
one  of  the  little  wooded  valleys  of  the  Heath, 
and  doubt  on  waking  if  you  are  not  in  a  dream, 
when  you  hear  the  bells  of  London  churches 
strike  the  hours.  In  those  older  days,  when 
there  were  fewer  houses,  and  the  city  had  not 
yet  swept  the  edge  of  the  green  with  her  dusty 
grey  petticoat,  it  was  no  wonder  that  Hamp- 
stead was  loved  by  men  of  letters  chained  to  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  town. 

Steele's  cottage  was  on  Haverstock  Hill,  just 
opposite  "  The  Load  of  Hay,"  and  within  easy 
walking  distance  of  "  The  Upper  Flask,"  "  The 
Bull  and  Bush,"  "The  Spaniards,"  and  the 
other  taverns  of  the  Heath.  Here  he  came  to 
work,  but  doubtless  often  found  that  "  the  sun 
was  on  the  other  side  of  the  road,"  and  stepped 

839 


230  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

over  to  "  The  Load  of  Hay."  Or  perhaps  he 
made  the  pot-boy  of  the  inn  carry  the  sunlight 
over  to  him  in  a  pewter  tankard.  Here  he  lived, 
like  the  untidy,  pleasant  creature  that  he  was, 
half  gentleman  and  Captain  of  the  Guards,  half 
just  jolly  humanity,  the  friend  of  all  the  world. 
He  was  more  often  Dick  than  Captain  Steele. 

Up  Haverstock  Hill  on  summer  days  came  as 
many  of  the  "  thirty-nine  noblemen  and  gentle- 
men, zealously  attached  to  the  Protestant  suc- 
cession of  the  House  of  Hanover,"  as  thought  it 
worth  their  while  to  journey  out  from  town  to 
the  meetings  of  the  Kit  Cat  Club  at  "  The  Up- 
per Flask."  There  would  be  Addison,  sure  to 
call  for  the  better  half  of  the  Spectator  on  the 
way.  Or  if  not  Addison,  then  another  of  them 
would  find  Steele,  doubtless  pretending  to  be 
busy,  but  really  waiting  eagerly  for  the  call  that 
would  persuade  him  from  his  labours.  Then,  at 
"  The  Upper  Flask,"  they  would  drink,  and  per- 
haps sing,  and  certainly  talk,  as  they  sat  under  a 
mulberry  tree  enjoying  the  fresh  air  and  each 
other's  society. 

"  The  Spaniards "  inn,  too,  has  its  history. 
Goldsmith  met  there  with  his  less  reputable 
friends,  the  friends  with  whom  he  could 
"  rattle  away  carelessly,"  without  dread  of 
Doctor  Johnson's  conversational  bludgeon. 
And  in  later  times  it  shared  with  "  Jack 
Straw's    Castle "    the    affections    of    Dickens, 


OLD  AND  NEW   HAMPSTEAD      231 

who  gave  Mrs.  Bardell  an  afternoon  there  with 
her  friends,  the  afternoon  that  was  so  cruelly 
interrupted  by  the  terrors  of  the  law.  Dickens 
wrote  to  Forster  in  1837:  "You  don't  feel  dis- 
posed, do  you,  to  muffle  yourself  up,  and  start 
oflf  with  me  for  a  good  brisk  walk  over  Hamp- 
stead  Heath?  I  knows  a  good  'ouse  there  where 
we  can  have  a  red-hot  chop  for  dinner,  and  a 
glass  of  good  wine."  It  is  easy  to  picture  them 
at  it,  and  the  taste  for  red-hot  chops  continues 
still,  and  often  in  the  summer  twos  and  threes  go 
up  to  walk  the  Heath  and  feed  at  one  or  other 
of  its  inns,  and  still  there  are  clubs  that  meet  to 
chatter  at  "  The  Spaniards  "  or  "  The  Bull  and 
Bush." 

Lamb  knew  the  Heath;  sorrowfully  upon 
occasion,  when  he  walked  hand  in  hand  with 
his  sister,  taking  her  to  the  asylum  at 
Finchley  when  her  old  mania  showed  any 
sign  of  an  outbreak;  merrily  enough  though  at 
Leigh  Hunt's,  and  quite  pleasantly  by  himself; 

"  I  do  not  remember  a  more  whimsical  sur- 
prise than  having  been  once  detected — by  a 
familiar  damsel — reclined  at  my  ease  upon  the 
grass,  on  Primrose  Hill  (her  Cythera)  reading 
*  Pamela.'  There  was  nothing  in  the  book  to 
make  a  man  seriously  ashamed  at  the  exposure; 
but  as  she  seated  herself  down  by  me,  and  seemed 
determined  to  read  in  company,  I  could  have 
wished  it  had  been — any  other  book.    We  read 


232  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

on  very  sociably  for  a  few  pages;  and,  not  find- 
ing the  author  much  to  her  taste,  she  got  up,  and 
• — ^went  away.  Gentle  casuist,  I  leave  it  to  thee 
to  conjecture,  whether  the  blush  (for  there  was 
one  between  us)  was  the  property  of  the  nymph 
or  the  swain  in  this  dilemma.  From  me  you 
shall  never  get  the  secret." 

Leigh  Hunt  had  "  a  little  packing-case  of  a 
cottage  "  in  the  Vale  of  Health.  There  never 
was  such  a  man  for  illustrating  his  own  charac- 
ter. When  he  was  in  prison  he  decorated  his 
room  with  painted  roses;  and  see  how  he  shows 
his  pride  in  the  very  cottaginess  of  his  cottage. 
"  I  defy  you,"  says  he,  "  to  have  lived  in  a 
smaller  cottage  than  I  have  done.  Yet,"  he  con- 
tinues, "  it  has  held  Shelley,  and  Keats,  and  half 
a  dozen  friends  in  it  at  once."  There  is  a  good 
deal  of  Leigh  Hunt  in  those  two  sentences.  He 
loved  to  retire  there  to  work,  out  of  the  bustle 
of  London;  and  there  were  spent  the  evenings 
that  Shelley  remembered  in  Italy,  in  the  little 
room  that  Keats  describes : 

" the  chimes 

Of  friendly  voices  had  just  given  place 
To  as  sweet  a  silence,  when  I  'gan  retrace 
The  pleasant  day,  upon  a  couch  at  ease. 
It  was  a  poet's  house  who  keeps  the  keys 
Of  pleasure's  temple.     Round  about  were  hung 
The  glorious  features  of  the  bards  who  sung 
In  other  ages — cold  and  sacred  busts 
Smiled  at  each  other 


OLD   AND  NEW   HAMPSTEAD       233 

Sappho's  meek  head  was  there  half  smiling  down 
At  nothing;  just  as  though  the  earnest  frown 
Of  over  thinking  had  that  moment  gone 
From  ofi  her  brow,  and  left  her  all  alone. 

"  Great  Alfred's,  too,  with  anxious  pitying  eyes, 
As  if  he  always  listened  to  the  sighs 
Of  the  goaded  world ;  and  Kosciusko's  worn 
By  horrid  suff'rance — mightily  forlorn. 

"  Petrarch,  outstepping  from  the  shady  green, 
Starts  at  the  sight  of  Laura;  nor  can  wean 
His  eyes  from  her  sweet  face.     Most  happy  they! 
For  over  them  was  seen  a  fair  display 
Of  outspread  wings,  and  from  between  them  shone 
The  face  of  Poesy:  from  off  her  throne 
She  overlook'd  things  that  I  scarce  could  tell. 
The  very  sense  of  where  I  was  might  well 
Keep  Sleep  aloof :  but  more  than  that,  there  came 
Thought  after  thought  to  nourish  up  the  flame 
Within  my  breast ;  so  that  the  morning  light 
Surprised  me  even  from  a  sleepless  night; 
And  up  I  rose  refresh'd,  and  glad,  and  gay. 
Resolving  to  begin  that  very  day 
These  lines ;  and  howsoever  they  be  done, 
I  leave  them  as  a  father  does  his  son." 

Hazlitt  came  here  to  listen  to  Leigh  Hunt 
"  running  on  and  talking  about  himself  at  his 
own  fireside."  Hazlitt  thought  Hunt  a  "  de- 
lightful coxcomb,"  and  doubtless  told  him  so. 
"  Mr.  Hunt  ought  to  have  been  a  gentleman 
born,  and  to  have  patronised  men  of  letters.  He 
might  then  have  played,  and  sung,  and  laughed, 
and  talked  his  life  away." 


234  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

All  that  set  of  men  loved  the  Heath.  Leigh 
Hunt  found  it  an  admirable  place  for  studying 
Italian  landscapes ;  Shelley  used  to  run  about  it 
in  the  dark,  leaping  over  the  bushes,  and  shout- 
ing like  an  exuberant  imp  let  out  in  upper  air. 
Coleridge  finished  his  life  out  at  Highgate,  on 
the  other  side ;  and  Keats  bought  the  Heath  for 
himself  by  right  of  song.  Here  he  wrote  the 
"  Ode  to  a  Nightingale,"  and  he  lived  at  one 
time  in  Well  Walk,  lodging  v^ith  a  postman, 
and  at  another  in  John  Street,  w^here  he  was  next 
door  to  Fanny  Brawne.  From  the  time  of  the 
Kit  Cats  the  place  has  never  been  without  its 
writers;  and  as  for  painters — Romney,  Col- 
lins, Linnell,  Constable,  Madox  Brown,  Kate 
Greenaway:  need  the  list  be  continued  fur- 
ther? 

To-day  things  are  different.  Hampstead  is 
no  longer  a  fashionable  watering-place  some 
way  out  of  London ;  it  is  within  half  an  hour  of 
the  middle  of  the  town.  It  has  suffered  from  its 
own  reputation,  and  become  a  stronghold  of  the 
"  literary  life,"  which  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  the  honest,  hardworking  existence  of  men 
like  Hunt  or  Keats.  It  is  the  home  of  people 
who  have  had  trivial  successes,  and  live  on  in 
the  sequestered  happiness  of  forgotten  celebri- 
ties, and  of  the  people  who  have  been  able  to 
spend  their  lives  playing  admirably  at  art  or 
literature.     Painters  who  can  no  longer  paint, 


OLD  AND  NEW   HAMPSTEAD       235 

poets  whose  fame  has  penetrated  the  suburban 
wildernesses  and  become  no  more  than  notoriety, 
journalists  who  have  never  had  their  day,  all 
live  here  together,  a  curious,  unreal  life  like 
fragile  puppets  in  a  toy  theatre.  The  place  has 
the  feeling  of  a  half-way  house  between  this 
world  and  the  next. 

Its  convention  of  unconventionality  is  too 
rigid  for  Bohemia.  Everyone  is  congratulat- 
ing everyone  on  being  so  different  from  every- 
one else.  No  one  is  content  to  live  as  life  has 
made  them  and  as  they  are.  Indeed,  there 
would  be  no  chapter  about  the  place  in  this  book 
if  it  were  not  that  young  writers  and  painters 
so  often  get  their  first  queer  foretaste  of  repu- 
tation in  the  Hampstead  salons.  For  there  is 
competition  among  the  wives  of  the  elderly 
critics  and  the  elderly  minor  poets,  who  wish 
to  make  their  houses  centres  of  intellectual  life, 
to  collect  the  most  youthful  specimens  of  genius, 
and  to  hear,  as  from  the  mouths  of  babes  and 
sucklings,  the  meanings  and  messages  of  "  the 
newer  movements."  A  dozen  charming  middle- 
aged  women  struggle,  with  the  aid  of  Messrs. 
Liberty  and  a  painful  expenditure  of  taste,  to 
turn  their  drawing-rooms  into  salons.  And  a 
young  man  cannot  be  long  in  the  life  of  the 
studios  or  the  reviews  without  being  introduced 
to  one  of  them. 

Ah,  the  Hampstead  salon.    Imagine  a  room 


236  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

papered  in  delicate  green,  with  white  mouldings 
dividing  the  walls  and  white  paint  along  the 
cornices,  and  a  fringe  of  Hobbema  trees  run- 
ning round  below  the  ceiling.  The  room  has 
half  a  dozen  nooks  and  corners,  and  in  each 
corner,  seated  on  cushions,  are  a  young  man 
with  long  hair  and  flowing  tie,  and  a  maiden 
out  of  a  Burne-Jones  picture,  reading  poetry, 
listening  to  the  talk  or  to  the  music  made  by  a 
youthful  Paderewski  at  the  piano.  The  hostess 
will  be  draped  in  green  or  brown,  to  tone  with 
the  wall-papers,  and  she  will  talk  anxiously  with 
one  or  another  young  man,  thinking  all  the  time 
about  the  intellectual  level  of  the  conversation 
and  the  balance  of  her  sentences.  And  the  talk? 
In  the  corners  of  the  room  it  will  be  of  poetry, 
or  ideals  in  art  or  politics;  but  through  all  will 
run  a  deeper,  more  serious  note.  Some  cause, 
some  movement,  some  great  and  vital  matter 
will  stir  the  whole  salon.  For  Hampstead  has 
always  her  causes,  forsaken  one  by  one  as  some 
new  Pied  Piper  carries  the  ladies  after  him.  A 
man  will  address  the  hostess  and  shake  his  fist, 
and  talk  of  Ireland,  and  the  brutality  of  English 
rule ;  of  the  deplorable  condition  of  the  Russian 
peasants;  of  the  open  shame  of  the  Ipecacuanha 
Indians,  who  prefer  tattoo  to  decent  clothing. 
"  Shall  these  things  be?  "  he  asks.  "  What,  tell 
me,  is  to  become  of  liberty,  of  humanity,  of  civ- 
ilisation, if  Hampstead  pass  by  on  the  other  side 


OLD  AND  NEW   HAMPSTEAD      237 

of  the  way?  "    What  indeed?    Several  commit- 
tees will  be  formed  at  once. 

I  have  a  tenderness  for  the  people  in  the 
corners;  with  them  lies  hope.  It  is  not  their 
fault  if  they  have  been  brought  up  in  the  mas- 
querade; nor  are  they  much  to  blame  if  they 
have  mistaken  its  doors  (with  imitation  old 
English  latches)  for  the  gates  of  the  promised 
land  where  convention  is  no  more,  and  art  and 
poetry  flourish  together  like  birds  in  the  dawn. 
A  salmon-coloured  tie  may  really  help  a  young 
poet  to  be  himself;  it  only  becomes  abhorrent 
when  it  is  put  on  as  a  fashionable  affectation. 
Long  and  matted  hair  is  quite  intelligibly  worn 
by  the  young  men  who  are  mad  to  "  return  to 
the  primitive  emotions  of  healthy  barbaric  life  " 
(I  quote  from  a  Hampstead  conversation).  It 
is  certainly  entertaining  to  watch  the  chase  of 
barbaric  emotion  in  a  Hampstead  drawing- 
room — but  we  can  be  grateful  for  amusement. 
And  if  we  ask  for  seriousness  of  purpose — it  was 
one  of  these  Hampstead  poets  who  wrote  on  his 
birthday:  "Eighteen  to-day  .  .  .  And 
NOTHING  done  1 "  You  cannot  have  anything 
much  more  serious  than  that. 


A  WEDDING   IN   BOHEMIA 


A  WEDDING  IN  BOHEMIA 

A  SCULPTOR  and  a  painter  girl  fell 
in  love  with  each  other,  and,  as  they 
had  neither  money  nor  prospect  of 
getting  any,  had  nothing  to  wait  for, 
and  so  got  married  at  once.  A  cousin  of  the 
sculptor,  not  knowing  what  was  on  foot,  unex- 
pectedly ordered  a  bust,  and  paid  him  twenty 
pounds:  with  so  much  opulence,  they  decided 
to  spend  their  honeymoon  in  the  Latin  Quarter. 
We  were  very  fond  of  them  both,  and  held 
a  consultation  on  the  matter.  Was  it  right, 
was  it  fitting,  we  asked,  that  these  two  should 
be  married  and  have  no  wedding  party? 
Let  us  uphold  the  honour  of  the  arts,  and 
give  them  a  send-off.  Things  were  very  well 
with  some  of  us,  and  we  were  sure  of  a  couple 
of  sovereigns,  so  four  of  us  set  off  through  the 
back  streets  of  Bloomsbury  to  a  small  French 
restaurant  that  had  always  held  us  welcome. 

"  A  wedding  party?  "  asked  madame  of  the 
restaurant.  "  And  who  of  you  is  to  be 
married?  Monsieur  the  sculptor — quel  brave 
gargon — and  the  mademoiselle  si  petite,  si  jolie." 

241 


242  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

She  was  delighted,  and  promised  us  the  upstairs 
room  to  ourselves,  and  said  she  would  do  her 
best  for  us.  We  separated,  to  whip  up  the 
guests,  collect  the  money,  buy  some  roses  in 
Covent  Garden,  and  borrow  a  famous  and  gi- 
gantic loving-cup  that  has  taken  its  part  in  a 
dozen  celebrations.  We  bought  a  modelling 
tool  and  a  huge  cheap  paint  brush,  and  decor- 
ated them  with  ribbons. 

Our  party  met  that  evening  at  the  Mad  Club, 
twelve  men  and  women,  determined  on  enjoy- 
ment. The  sculptor,  who  had  shaved  his  beard 
for  the  blessed  occasion,  arrived  last,  with  the 
little  painter  girl.  He  was  twenty-two,  and  she 
nineteen,  and  we  greeted  them  with  cheers. 
Then,  delighting  in  the  envy  of  the  rest  of  the 
Club,  who  had  not  been  invited,  and  had  the 
bad  taste  to  laugh  at  our  enthusiasm,  we  set  off 
in  procession.  A  sturdy  fellow  with  an  accor- 
dion, which  he  had  promised  not  to  play  in  the 
streets,  marched  in  front,  side  by  side  with  our 
principal  poet,  who  had  composed  a  wedding 
ode.  Then  came  the  bride  and  bridegroom; 
then  three  girls,  two  students,  and  a  model,  with 
their  attendant  men;  and  lastly  a  big  fat  Scotch 
writer  of  humorous  stories,  and  me  with  a 
penny  whistle.  Our  satisfaction  with  ourselves 
was  sublime,  and  showed  itself,  in  spite  of  the 
prohibition,  in  spasms  of  melody  on  the  way. 
We  walked  merrily,  shouting  jokes  from  rank 


A  WEDDING   IN  BOHEMIA 


243 


to  rank,  up  Long  Acre,  across  Holborn,  and 
then  to  the  right  from  Southampton  Row,  until 
we  reached  the  restaurant. 

When  we  turned  the  last  corner,  we  saw,  fdf  * 
away  at  the  other  end  of  the  grey  street,  the  black  i 


and  white  figure  of  a  waiter  standing  expectant 
in  the  middle  of  the  road.  At  the  sight  of  our 
procession  he  hurriedly  disappeared,  and  when 
we  reached  the  door  madame  in  person,  big. 


244  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

red-cheeked,  blue-bloused,  white-aproned,  was 
standing  smiling  on  the  threshold. 

The  sculptor  turned  timorously  to  the  rear 
Vanks.  "  She  does  not  know  which  of  us  it  is?  " 
he  whispered,  with  fear  in  his  voice.  But  she 
enlightened  him  herself. 

"  Ah,  Monsieur  et  Madame,"  she  cried, 
breaking  into  the  midst  of  us,  and  seizing  the 
hands  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom.  "  You 
have  the  best  of  my  wishes  for  the  happy  mar- 
ried life,  the  dear  love,  and  the  large  family. 
Your  little  wife,  is  she  not  so  charming,  so 
beautiful?  .  .  .  Your  husband,  ce  bon  gar- 
gon,  is  he  not  so  well-set-up?  All  is  ready,"  she 
laughed  a  welcome  to  the  rest  of  us :  "  the  wine 
has  come,  and  the  bouillon  is  hot;  it  is  Mon- 
sieur's favourite  bouillon,"  she  added,  turning 
again  to  the  sculptor,  "  and  for  Madame  I  have 
made  a  salade  with  my  own  hands.  .  .  .  Ah, 
the  happy  married  life,  Monsieur  et  Ma- 
dame." 

Upstairs  madame  had  kept  her  promises. 
Bottles  ranged  down  the  table,  and  the  red  and 
white  roses  made  a  rare  show.  A  paper  crown, 
looked  upon  lovingly  by  the  Frenchwoman  as 
her  own  work,  folded  and  frizzed  like  the 
decoration  to  a  tart,  lay  on  the  plate  of  the  bride, 
and  a  huge  cigar,  a  present  from  madame's 
husband,  lay  on  the  plate  of  the  bridegroom. 
The  paint  brush  and  the  modelling  tool,  gay 


A  WEDDING   IN  BOHEMIA        245 

with  ribbons,  lay  crossed  between  them.  Corks 
flew  from  bottles  with  a  joyous  crackling. 
Madame  stood  in  the  doorway,  her  hands  on 
her  hips,  shouting  joyfully  to  the  waiter  to  be 
quick  with  the  bouillon,  which  presently  came 
up  in  a  vast  tureen.  She  sent  the  waiter 
packing  down  again,  to  bring  up  her  shy  red 
husband,  made  him  shake  hands  with  the  lot 
of  us,  and  then  remained  after  he  had  escaped, 
to  hear  the  sculptor,  in  a  nervous,  efflorescent 
speech,  acknowledge  the  gifts  of  crown  and 
cigar  and  the  effective  symbolism  of  the  paint 
brush  and  the  moulder. 

Indeed,  she  could  not  find  it  in  her  heart  to 
leave  us.  She  waited  on  us,  bullying  the 
waiter  out  of  the  jollity  of  her  heart,  and  ad- 
dressing remarks  all  the  time  to  "  Monsieur  et 
Madame,"  a  huge  smile  expressing  her  own 
satisfaction,  and  a  crimson  face  the  confusion 
of  the  little  painter  girl,  while  the  sculptor 
pretended  not  to  mind.  The  soup  was  served, 
and  the  waiter  vanished  regretfully,  as  the  rest 
of  the  meal  was  to  be  cold,  and  we  had  agreed 
to  help  ourselves  .  .  .  Surely  she  was  going. 
No.  "  Pardon,  Monsieur  et  Madame,"  she 
beamed  in  the  faces  of  the  uncomfortable  two, 
and  rearranged  their  knives  and  forks.  Again 
she  tried  to  go,  again  was  overcome  by  the  fasci- 
nation of  the  newly  married.  "  Que  je  suis 
imbecile," — she  shuffled  back  and  altered  the 


246  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

position  of  the  flowers  in  the  middle  of  the  table. 
"  Oh,  Monsieur  et  Madame,"  she  murmured, 
smiling  with  as  matronly  an  enjoyment  as  if  the 
pretty  little  painter  had  been  one  of  her  own 
stout  daughters.  Suddenly  the  sculptor's  self- 
possession  left  him.  He  put  down  his  spoon, 
and  fairly  loosed  himself  in  laughter,  and  the 
good  woman,  enjoying  but  not  in  the  least  un- 
derstanding the  joke,  threw  her  head  back  and 
laughed  uproariously  with  him.  Someone 
lifted  the  loving-cup.  "  Yes,  yes  I  "  we  shouted. 
"  To  the  health  of  Monsieur  et  Madame  1 "  "  To 
Monsieur  et  Madame!"  she  said  with  fervour, 
and  holding  the  great  bowl  between  her  fat 
jewelled  hands,  she  drank.  How  we  laughed. 
She  set  the  loving-cup  on  the  table,  and,  sud- 
denly bending  over,  kissed  the  little  bride  on 
the  forehead.  How  we  cheered.  Then  at  last 
she  went  out.  "  Oh,  Monsieur  et  Madame,"  we 
heard  her  gurgle  as  she  closed  the  door. 

That  set  the  dinner  going  gaily.  The  food 
disappeared,  and  the  beer,  and  the  wine.  We 
made  speeches;  we  sang;  the  poet  recited  his 
ode;  we  made  the  little  bride  put  on  her  paper 
crown,  and  compelled  her  husband  to  smoke 
his  gigantic  cigar;  the  loving-cup  passed  round 
twice,  and  then  could  go  round  no  more  except 
as  the  emblem  of  a  vanished  joy.  There  was 
a  piano  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  and  when  we 
left  the  table  we  did  a  little  dancing;  the  man 


A  WEDDING   IN  BOHEMIA        247 

with  the  accordion  used  it  well,  the  penny 
whistle  sounded,  and  one  of  the  bridesmaids, 
who  was  an  art  student,  sat  at  the  piano  with 
a  painter,  to  play  a  ten-finger  duet,  their  spare 
hands  clasped  about  each  other's  waists.  At 
half-past  ten  we  begin  to  be  thirsty  again  with 
our  merriment,  and  there  was  no  wine  or  indeed 
drink  of  any  kind  in  the  place,  for  the  restaurant 
had  no  licence.  The  street  door  had  been  shut 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  before.  We  had  to  draw 
lots  as  to  who  should  go  out  to  replenish  the 
canteen.  Two  were  to  go — the  one  to  see,  as 
somebody  impertinently  suggested,  that  none  of 
the  precious  liquor  was  drunk  upon  the  way — 
and  the  lot  fell  on  the  fat  story-writer  and  me. 
The  others  were  to  let  us  in  from  the  street,  as 
soon  as  they  heard  us  knock. 

Ideals  cause  a  great  deal  of  discomfort. 
There  was  really  no  need  for  us  to  have  any; 
we  could  have  been  contented  with  wine — but 
our  ideal  was  creme  de  menthe.  In  other  parts 
of  the  town  you  have  but  to  ask  for  creme  de 
menthe  to  see  it  handed  over  the  counter;  but 
here  it  was  a  different  matter.  We  got  our 
dozen  of  cheap  bad  claret  with  ease,  and  bor- 
rowed a  basket  to  carry  it  in ;  but  we  went  to  at 
least  eight  little  shops  in  those  back  streets  before 
we  found  a  man  who  had  ever  heard  of  the 
liqueur.  At  last  we  found  a  spirit-shop  with  a 
very  intelligent  proprietor,  whose  intelligence 


248  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

we  welcomed,  that  afterwards  we  had  cause  to 
curse. 

"  Creme  de  menthe,"  he  said;  "is  not  that 
the  same  as  essence  of  peppermint?  " 

"  Yes,  surely."  We  had  heard  something  of 
the  sort.  "  Anyhow,  it  is  always  sold  in  narrow 
bottles." 

The  man  went  downstairs  behind  the  counter, 
and  we  heard  him  strike  a  match  and  move 
about  in  the  cellar  under  our  feet.  Presently 
he  came  up  with  two  very  big  bottles. 

"  At  least  these  are  the  right  shape." 

We  bought  them,  and,  laden  with  our  pur- 
chases, set  off  eagerly  back  to  the  restaurant. 

All  the  lights  were  out  below  stairs,  and  the 
blinds  were  down  in  the  windows  of  the  room 
our  party  were  enjoying.  The  accordion  was 
going  merrily,  and  several  voices  were  singing 
different  songs.  We  banged  and  thundered  on 
the  door,  but  they  were  making  too  much  noise 
for  anybody  in  the  house  to  hear  us.  Standing 
well  back  from  the  pavement,  I  began  to  throw 
pennies  at  the  lighted  windows.  The  first  penny 
touched  the  cornice,  fell  in  the  gutter,  and 
rolled  away  irretrievably  in  the  darkness  of  the 
street.  The  second  hit  the  sill,  and  dropped 
through  the  grating  into  the  basement.  The 
third,  the  fourth  followed  its  example.  There 
was  no  other  missile  left  but  my  latchkey.  The 
other  fellow  had  nothing  at  all. 


A  WEDDING  IN  BOHEMIA       249 

"  You'll  have  to  make  a  good  shot,  and  smash 
the  window,  or  else  you'll  lose  the  key.  We'll 
make  those  deaf  idiots  share  the  expense." 

I  took  a  step  back,  and  a  deliberate  aim,  and 
then  let  fly.  There  was  a  crash  of  falling  glass 
as  the  latchkey  fell  inside  the  room.  The  music 
stopped,  the  blind  was  pulled  aside,  and  half  a 
dozen  of  the  rogues  trooped  downstairs,  let  us 
in  with  cheerful  apologies,  and  took  the  claret 
bottles  from  the  basket  as  we  carried  it  up. 

The  creme  de  menthe,  the  prize  of  the 
evening,  was  to  be  kept  to  the  end,  and  we  gave 
ourselves  up  gladly  to  singing,  and  drinking  the 
claret.  It  had  been  found  that  the  poet's  rather 
solemn  epithalamium  fitted  admirably  to  a  pop- 
ular music-hall  tune;  it  was  rendered  with 
energy,  and  such  success  that  even  the  poet,  in- 
clined to  be  unhappy  at  first,  at  last  joined  in 
good-temperedly,  and  sang  as  loudly  as  the  rest. 
It  was  very  late  when  we  took  the  first  of  those 
long  bottles,  opened  it  with  elaborate  ostenta- 
tion, and  poured  a  green  liquid  into  the  empty 
wine-glasses.  Thank  goodness,  it  was  the  right 
colour. 

"Health!"  cried  the  sculptor,  "to  the  two 
brave  fellows  who  gave  their  all  (for  did  they 
not  leave  us,  and  is  not  merriment  such  as  ours 
the  sum  of  human  joy)  to  bring  us  this  liqueur. 
Gentlemen,  brother  artists,  your  very  good 
health  1" 


250  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

The  glasses,  shimmering  with  dark  green, 
were  lifted,  and  ten  happy  men  and  women 
drank  to  our  prosperity.  I  have  seldom  seen 
ten  faces  flash  with  such  perfect  unanimity  from 
exultation  to  dismay.  Their  mouths  screwed 
up.  Their  eyes  blinked.  They  put  the  glasses 
unsteadily  down. 

"You  two  fellows  had  better  drink  our 
healths  now,"  was  the  sculptor's  only  comment, 
as  he  set  his  glass  on  the  mantelpiece,  with  the 
tears  in  his  eyes,  and  wrinkles  round  his  mouth 
as  if  he  had  been  drinking  lemon  juice. 

We  sipped  gingerly,  walked  to  the  window, 
and  hurled  the  bottles  that  had  cost  so  much  to 
sudden  chaos  on  the  opposite  pavement.  So 
much  for  ideals. 

Just  then  the  big  French  lady  opened  the 
door.  "It  is  half-past  twelve,"  she  said;  "I 
regret  much  that  you  must  go."  She  looked 
round  the  room  for  the  bride,  and  smiled  again 
her  prodigious,  wonderful  smile.  "The  bill? 
Ah,  yes.    That  is  quite  right." 

"  We  have  broken  a  window,"  said  the  sculp- 
tor. He  had  insisted  that  the  window  at  least 
should  be  paid  for  by  himself. 

Madame  smiled  again.  "  Ah  oui.  A  win- 
dow. It  is  the  youth.  One  does  not  get  married 
every  day.  The  window  shall  be  my  wedding 
gift  to  Monsieur  et  Madame."  She  caught  the 
young  sculptor,  who  had  unwarily  approached 


A  WEDDING   IN   BOHEMIA       251 

too  near,  and  kissed  him  loudly  on  either  cheek. 
I  am  really  happy  to  record  the  fact — he  kissed 
her  in  return. 

And  so  the  twelve  of  us  bundled  out  into  the 
street  again,  half  an  hour  after  midnight,  leav- 
ing madame  waving  farewells  from  the  door. 
This  time  we  did  not  walk  in  twos  and  twos. 
Our  hearts  were  high,  and  needed  a  more  gen- 
eral comradeship.  We  walked  twelve  deep,  arm 
in  arm,  along  the  narrow  streets,  to  the  tune,  or 
something  like  the  tune,  of  the  "  Soldiers' 
Chorus,"  played  bravely  on  the  accordion.  It 
was  not  genteel;  it  was  perhaps  a  little  vulgar; 
but  it  was  tremendously  genuine. 

We  went  to  a  flat  in  the  Gray's  Inn  Road  that 
was  rented  by  two  of  the  men.  As  long  as  the 
wine  and  the  jollity  kept  us  awake  we  made 
speeches,  and  sang,  and  prophesied  of  the  success 
of  the  sculptor,  and  told  stories  without  point 
that  seemed  prodigiously  witty.  Gradually  we 
grew  sleepier  and  sleepier,  and  at  last  were  all 
asleep,  some  on  the  divans,  some  in  chairs,  some 
on  the  floor  with  heads  on  cushions  or  backs 
propped  against  the  wall.  .  .  .  We  awoke 
only  just  in  time  to  take  the  two  children,  bride 
and  bridegroom,  to  the  station,  where  their  lug- 
gage, such  as  it  was,  was  waiting  for  them,  and 
to  see  them  ofif,  dishevelled,  dirty,  weary  as  our- 
selves, in  the  morning  boat  train  for  Paris. 


A    NOVELIST 


A   NOVELIST 

IT  is  a  joyous  day  for  a  young  man  when  one 
of  his  articles  wins  him  a  letter  from  a 
well-known  writer.  I  walked  through 
Bloomsbury  with  elation,  feeling,  square 
in  my  pocket,  the  note  that  invited  me  to  call  on 
a  novelist  whose  work  had  given  me  a  paragraph 
in  one  of  my  diminutive  essays.  He  was  so  well 
known  that  it  was  a  little  surprising  to  find  him 
in  Bloomsbury  at  all.  Why  not  in  St.  John's 
Wood?  I  asked.  Why  not  in  the  real  country? 
At  least,  I  pictured  a  very  sumptuous  flat. 
Through  the  old  streets  I  walked,  through  the 
squares  of  tall  old  houses  once  fashionable  but 
now  infested  by  landladies,  expecting  all  the 
time,  as  I  neared  the  street  he  had  mentioned,  to 
find  more  signs  of  opulence.  I  found  it  at  last, 
and  it  was  dingy,  miserable,  more  depressing 
than  the  rest.  The  novelist  lived  at  No.  7.  I 
rang  the  bell  and  waited  with  a  fluttering  heart. 
Presently  the  door  opened  a  suspicious  six 
inches,  and  the  tousled  head  of  an  elderly 
woman  in  curl-papers  showed  itself  in  the  open- 
ing. On  asking  for  my  novelist,  I  was  told  to 
come  in,  and  driven  into  the  usual  lodging-house 

255 


256  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

dining-room.  A  huge  gilt  mirror  hung  over  the 
mantelpiece,  faded  rhododendrons  upside  down 
made  a  grisly  pattern  on  the  wall-paper,  the 
table  was  covered  with  a  purple  tasselled  cloth 
with  holes  in  it,  and  the  furniture  was  up- 
holstered in  a  material  that  had  once  been  pink. 
The  curtains  drawn  across  the  windows  were 
yellow  and  grey  with  age  and  dust,  and  I  could 
not  bear  to  look  at  the  carpet.  There  were  four 
pictures  on  the  walls,  portraits  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria and  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  two  enlarged  pho- 
tographs, coloured,  and  magnificently  framed, 
that  showed  the  curl-papered  lady  who  had 
opened  the  door,  dressed  in  a  low-necked  even- 
ing gown,  with  jewels  about  her  fat,  creased 
neck,  and  flowers  in  her  hair. 

The  door  had  been  left  open,  and  presently 
she  shouted,  "  Go  upstairs  1  First  on  the  left." 
The  door  of  "  first  on  the  left "  was  ajar,  and  a 
baby  was  squalling  inside.  I  knocked,  and  went 
into  the  most  dishevelled  room  it  is  possible  to 
imagine.  There  was  a  big  bed  in  it,  unmade,  the 
bed-clothes  tumbled  anyhow,  several  broken 
chairs,  and  a  washing-stand  with  a  basin  out  of 
which  someone  had  taken  a  bite.  The  novelist, 
in  a  dressing-gown  open  at  the  neck,  and  show- 
ing plainly  that  there  was  nothing  but  skin  be- 
neath it,  was  writing  at  a  desk,  throwing  off  his 
sheets  as  fast  as  he  covered  them.  A  very  pretty 
little  Irish  girl,  of  about  nineteen  or  twenty, 


THE  NOVELIST 


A    NOVELIST  257 

picked  them  up  as  they  fell,  and  sorted  them, 
at  the  same  time  doing  her  best  to  quiet  the  baby 
who  sprawled  all  over  her,  as  she  sat  on  the  floor. 
They  stood  up  when  I  came  in,  and  the  novelist 
tried  to  apologise  for  the  disorder,  but  the  baby 
howled  so  loudly  that  it  was  impossible  to  hear 
him. 

"Take  it  out!"  he  shouted  to  the  girl,  and 
she  obediently  picked  it  up  and  carried  it  out 
of  the  room. 

"  That  was  a  very  good  essay  of  yours,  young 
man,  and  I  thank  you  for  it.  I  scarcely  thought 
you  would  be  as  young  as  you  are.  How  young 
are  you?  " 

I  told  him. 

"  Fortunate  fellow.  Old  enough  for  wine, 
and  too  young  for  liqueurs.  The  best  of  all 
ages.  I  hope  you  thank  Jupiter  every  morning 
for  your  youth.  Ah  me,  what  it  is  to  be  young! 
I  was  a  strapping  fellow  when  I  was  as  young  as 
you.  And  now  I  Oh,  you  fortunate  young 
dog  I"  He  thumped  his  broad  chest,  that  was 
covered  with  thick  black  hair,  as  I  could  see, 
for  the  dressing  gown  had  fallen  partly  open. 
His  big  eyes  twinkled  under  their  strong  dark 
brows,  and  he  suddenly  buried  a  huge  unwashen 
hand  in  his  curly  black  hair. 

"  Aha!  You  are  thinking  that  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  be  a  success,  if  this  is  all  it  leads  to. 
Eh  I    What?    Yes.    I  am  right.    I    can  always 


258  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

tell.  That  is  the  curse  of  it.  Look  at  my  wife, 
for  example.  She  loves  me.  Yes.  But  she  does 
not  guess  that  I  know  she  looks  upon  me  as  a 
big  bull  baby,  very  queer  and  mad,  but  so  strong 
that  it  has  to  be  humoured.  In  fact,  when  she 
carried  off  that  vociferous  little  Victor  Hugo, 
she  was  only  looking  upon  you  as  a  lamb  offered 
providentially  for  sacrifice  in  place  of  Isaac. 
She  is  always  afraid  I  shall  throw  Victor  Hugo 
out  of  the  window.  It  is  very  annoying  to  know 
that  she  feels  like  that.  Funny  woman.  Pretty, 
don't  you  think?  But  what  about  that  wine?  If 
you  go  and  shout  '  Mrs.  GatchI'  at  the  top  of 
that  staircase,  the  she-dragon  who  runs  this 
place  will  come  and  bring  up  a  bottle  of  some- 
thing or  other.  I  would  shout  myself,  but  you 
are  younger  than  I." 

I  crossed  the  landing  and  shouted  for  Mrs. 
Gatch.  Presently  she  stood  below  me  in  the 
narrow  hall. 

"  Well,  and  what  is  it?  "  she  asked  crossly. 

I  was  just  going  to  reply,  when  the  voice  of 
the  novelist  bellowed  from  his  room,  like  the 
voice  of  one  of  the  winds  of  God. 

"  Mrs.  Gatch,  you  are  a  bad-tempered 
woman.  Don't  deny  it.  Bring  me  a  bottle  of 
the  best  bad  burgundy  you  have  in  the  filthy 
cellar." 

It  was  clear  that  Mrs.  Gatch  was  frightened 
of  him,   for  she   brought   the   bottle   at   once, 


A  NOVELIST  259 

wiping  it  on  her  apron  as  she  came  into  the 
room.  We  drank  out  of  a  couple  of  glasses  my 
great  man  brought  from  a  box  in  the  corner. 
Then  he  talked  of  literature,  and  so  well  that 
the  untidy  bed,  the  unclean  room,  the  wife  and 
the  baby  were  as  if  they  never  had  been.  In 
spite  of  his  unwashen  hands,  in  spite  of  the  dress- 
ing-gown, he  won  his  way  back  to  greatness.  He 
lifted  the  tumbler  magnificently  to  watch  the 
ruby  of  the  wine,  while  he  talked  of  Edgar 
Allan  Poe,  and  of  his  methods,  and  of  that  won- 
derful article  on  the  principles  of  composition. 
Poe  was  profound,  he  said,  to  have  imagined 
that  article,  but  the  article  represented  him  pro- 
founder  than  he  really  was.  From  Poe  we  came 
to  detective  and  mystery  tales,  Gaboriau,  Sher- 
lock Holmes,  and  the  analytical  attitude,  and 
so  to  the  relations  between  criticism  and  art.  It 
was  a  most  opulent  conversation. 

I  sat  on  a  three-legged  chair  wnere  I  could 
see  out  of  the  window,  and  presently  noticed 
the  novelist's  wife  walking  up  and  down  on  the 
opposite  pavement,  carrying  the  child  and  a 
blue  parasol.  She  had  not  troubled  to  put  on  a 
hat,  and  she  was  evidently  waiting  till  we  had 
done  our  talk.  It  was  clear  that  they  had  no 
other  room.  And  so,  regretfully,  calculating  a 
time  that  would  leave  her  at  the  top  of  the  street, 
while  I  escaped  at  the  bottom,  not  wishing  to 
put  her  to  confusion,  I  told  the  novelist  of  an 


26o  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

appointment  with  my  editor,  shook  hands  with 
him,  was  pressed  to  come  again,  ran  downstairs, 
and  walked  away  up  the  street.  I  walked 
quickly  away,  but  not  so  quickly  that  I  did  not 
see  the  little  woman  hurry  back  into  the  house 
with  Victor  Hugo,  to  resume,  doubtless,  her  oc- 
cupation of  sorting  the  pages  of  deathless  prose 
that  her  "  big  bull  baby "  dropped  from  his 
desk. 

I  saw  him  more  than  once  there  later,  and 
always  the  room  was  in  the  same  condition,  the 
child  howling,  the  wife  pretty,  untidy  as  ever, 
the  great  man  unwashed  but  working.  How  he 
could  work!  Sheet  after  sheet  used  to  drop 
from  his  desk.  Sometimes  when  I  called  upon 
him  he  would  be  in  the  middle  of  a  chapter,  and 
then  he  would  ask  me  to  sit  down  and  smoke, 
while  his  pen  whirled  imperturbably  to  the  end. 
He  could  write  in  any  noise,  and  he  could  throw 
ofif  his  work  completely  as  soon  as  the  pen  was 
out  of  his  hand.  He  was  quite  contented  in  the 
lodging-house,  living  with  wife  and  child  in  a 
single  room.  He  seemed  more  amused  than  an- 
noyed by  its  inconveniences.  "  After  all,"  he 
would  say,  "  I  have  to  pretend  to  superb  intel- 
lect, and  the  pretence  would  be  exposed  at  once 
if  I  let  such  things  worry  me." 

One  day  I  had  a  post-card  from  him,  saying 


A  NOVELIST  261 

he  was  going  abroad.  I  did  not  hear  from  him 
again  for  several  years,  when  a  letter  that  came 
in  a  crested  envelope  told  me  he  was  settled  in 
a  flat.    Would  I  come  to  dinner? 

He  was  in  Bloomsbury  again,  but  the  flat 
was  more  comfortable  than  the  room.  It  was 
very  decently  furnished,  and  quite  clean.  A 
book  of  his,  that  had  had  a  great  success  in 
America,  was  the  explanation  of  his  magnifi- 
cence. The  door  was  opened  by  an  elderly 
housekeeper,  and  I  was  ushered  into  his  study 
with  considerable  ceremony. 

He  rose  to  greet  me,  but  sat  down  again  at 
once,  and  said  that  he  was  very  ill. 

I  said  I  was  sorry  to  hear  it. 

"Damn  you,  young  manl  You  can  afford 
to  be.  Look  at  you,  you  young  bullock,  and 
then  look  at  me — a  miserable  wreck." 

He  lay  back  in  his  chair,  with  his  black  hair 
crisp  and  curly,  his  cheeks  red  and  healthy,  and 
his  heavy  black  eyebrows  stiff  and  strong  over 
his  active  eyes.  He  was  dressed,  except  that  he 
had  not  a  collar,  and  the  muscles  of  his  throat 
were  as  fine  and  beautiful  as  those  of  a  statue. 
I  could  not  think  of  him  as  ill. 

But  from  time  to  time  he  reached  languidly 
to  the  table,  and  took  a  tumbler  of  yellow 
opaque  liquid,  from  which  he  drank  a  little, 
and  then,  after  making  a  wry  face,  put  the 
tumbler  back. 


262  BOHEMIA   IN  LONDON 

Presently  he  explained.  "  Have  you  heard," 
said  he,  "  that  a  great  doctor,  a  man  called 
Verkerrsen,  has  been  investigating  the  long 
life  of  the  Hungarians,  and  attributes  it  to  the 
quantities  of  sour  milk  that  they  drink?  " 

I  had  not  heard. 

"Yes,"  he  went  on.  "The  whole  matter  is 
explained  in  an  article  in  the  Medical  Journal. 
You  had  better  read  it."  He  took  a  sip  from 
the  tumbler,  and  made  a  horrible  grimace. 
"Ugh!"  he  said,  "but  I  think  the  Hungarian 
sour  milk  must  be  nicer  than  the  sour  milk  of 
London.  Ugh  I  Disgusting.  But  I  must  take 
it,  I  suppose." 

He  loved  theories  above  everything  else,  and 
went  on  sipping  heroically  till  he  finished  the 
glass.  Then  he  jumped  to  his  feet,  and  arched 
his  biceps,  and  smote  proudly  on  his  chest. 
"  Ahl  "  he  cried,  "  it  was  worth  it.  I  feel  bet- 
ter already.    Let's  have  supper." 

Supper  was  brought  in,  admirably  cooked, 
and  laid  on  the  study  table.  We  sat  down  to 
it  with  the  elderly  housekeeper.  The  novelist, 
restored  by  sour  milk  to  ebullient  health,  was 
as  happy  as  could  be,  joking  now  with  her,  now 
with  me,  talking  most  joyfully.  Something 
crossed  his  mind,  when  he  was  half  way  through 
his  soup,  but  it  was  no  more  than  the  shadow  of 
a  bird  flying  over  a  flower-bed  in  the  sunlight. 
He  bent  towards  me.    "  I  say,"  he  said,  "  my 


A  NOVELIST  263 

wife  is  dying  in  Dublin  this  week.  Pass  the 
toast." 

I  did  not  know  what  to  reply.  But  there  was 
no  need,  for  he  had  passed  on  instantaneously 
to  a  new  ingenious  notion  of  his,  that  everything 
was  a  brain,  that  molecules  were  brains,  that 
we  were  aggregations  of  tiny  brains,  that  the 
world  was  a  huge  brain  with  us  as  parasites  upon 
it,  and  that  the  universe,  made  up  of  brains,  was 
nothing  but  a  mighty  brain  itself.  He  could 
think  of  nothing  else  till  supper  was  done. 

Then,  when  the  housekeeper  had  cleared 
away  the  supper  things,  he  went  to  the  cupboard 
and  pulled  out  two  long  narrow  stands,  each 
holding  a  dozen  liqueur  glasses.  "  My  own 
idea,"  he  explained,  and  proceeded  to  place 
upon  the  table  one  by  one  a  dozen  different 
bottles  of  liqueurs — Chartreuse,  Benedictine, 
creme  de  menthe,  anisette,  cherry  brandy, 
and  several  with  fantastic  names  of  his  own  in- 
vention. "  Let  us  drink  each  liqueur  to  a  differ- 
ent genius,"  he  said.  "  Chartreuse  for  Alexan- 
dre mon  cher  Dumas,  Benedictine  for  the  noble 
Balzac,  cherry  brandy  for  Fielding,  anisette 
for  Sterne,  creme  de  menthe — dull  stuff, 
creme  de  menthe;  we'll  drink  creme  de 
menthe;  to — to — to  Samuel  Richardson.  He'd 
have  thought  it  so  naughty." 

There  was  a  curious  point  about  this  man. 
He  loved  the  bravery  and  show  of  conviviality, 


264  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

but  he  was  not  a  Hans  Breitmann  to  "  solfe  der 
infinide  in  von  edernal  shpree."  He  never  got 
"  dipsy,"  and  he  hated  drunkenness  above  all 
other  vices.  The  only  time  we  quarrelled  was 
when,  hearing  that  I  was  going  to  see  him,  an- 
other man  whom  I  scarcely  knew  forced  him- 
self upon  me,  and  had  to  be  introduced.  The 
great  man  plied  him  with  liqueurs  till  he  fell 
on  the  floor,  and  quarrelled  with  me  for  six 
months  because  he  had  to  help  to  carry  the 
fellow  to  his  lodgings. 

I  should  like  to  see  him  again,  but  Blooms- 
bury  has  been  the  poorer  for  some  time,  being 
without  him.  I  think  he  is  in  France.  I  never 
dared  ask  if  the  wife  lived  or  died.  It  would 
have  been  so  difficult  to  find  the  correct  manner. 
Something  like  this,  I  suppose :  "  By  the  way, 
that  wife  of  yours;  underground  or  not?  Pass 
the  cigarettes." 


A  PAINTER 


A  PAINTER 

THE  painter  had  a  studio  made  of  two 
rooms,  one,  long  and  dark,  opening 
into  the  other,  which  was  larger,  but 
kept  in  a  perpetual  twilight  by  shades 
over  the  window.  The  walls  were  covered  with 
dark  green  curtains,  and  on  them  were  hung 
weird,  fiery-coloured  pictures,  compositions  for 
Oriental  dreams:  two  peris  caressing  a  peacock 
by  a  golden  fountain;  a  girl  in  crimson  and  gold 
holding  fantastic  wine-glasses  towards  the 
shadow  of  a  man ;  a  sketch  in  pastels  of  a  pait  of 
struggling  gods.  All  round  the  floor,  leaning  up 
against  the  walls,  were  unfinished  canvases,  half 
realised  dreams  that  had  not  the  energy  to  get 
themselves  expressed  before  they  were  forgotten, 
and  other  dreams,  to  be  abandoned  in  their  turn, 
were  striving  for  the  light.  There  was  an  old 
piano  in  a  corner,  and  a  sofa,  a  dark  wood  table, 
and  some  ebony  chairs. 

He  was  a  small  man,  with  hair  not  long,  but 
very  curly,  beautiful  eyes,  and  a  little  mous- 
tache. He  dressed  neatly,  though  he  had  less 
money  for  the  purpose  than  most  of  the  other 
artists  in  the  building.     He  worked  entirely 

367 


268  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

alone,  and  laughed  quietly  at  the  anxiety  of 
people  who  wished  to  succeed,  to  exhibit,  to  be 
publicly  recognised  as  painters,  unless  he  under- 
stood that  they  looked  upon  success  only  as  guar- 
antee of  bread  and  butter.  He  could  understand 
that  people  might,  without  degradation,  work 
for  bread  and  butter,  and  he  always  said  he  was 
willing  to  do  so  himself.  But  he  never  did. 
Chances  came  to  him,  as  they  come  to  every- 
body; but  either  the  would-be  purchaser  was  not 
appreciative,  or  he  chose  the  wrong  things  to 
commend.  The  painter  could  never  have  slept 
with  the  thought  that  one  of  his  pictures,  an  ar- 
rangement in  colours,  was  in  the  house  of  a  gold- 
watch-chained  plutocrat  who  loved  it  for  the 
sake  of  a  story  he  had  happened  to  read  into  it. 
He  would  have  counted  the  picture  as  wasted, 
and  would  not  have  let  it  go  to  such  a  man,  even 
if  the  money  would  have  saved  him  from 
starvation. 

There  were  only  two  very  small  exhibitions 
where  he  felt  he  could  show  his  pictures  with 
a  free  conscience,  and  he  had  a  painting  in  each 
every  year ;  and  yet,  though  he  had  the  year  in 
which  to  paint  them,  his  two  pictures  always 
went  down  unfinished.  He  used  to  paint  on, 
dream  after  dream,  imagining  that  each  one  was 
to  be  the  annual  masterpiece,  and  then,  before 
any  one  of  them  was  done,  he  would  be  started 
on  another,  until,  a  week  before  the  exhibitions, 


A   PAINTER  269 

he  would  find  that  he  had  not  a  single  picture  in 
such  a  state  that  he  could  expose  it  without 
shame  to  the  eyes  of  other  painters.  Then  he 
used  to  work  furiously,  first  on  one  picture,  then 
on  another,  now  on  the  first  again,  until  at  the 
end  of  the  week,  almost  in  tears,  he  would  send 
off  the  least  unfinished  of  the  lot,  and,  shutting 
himself  up  in  his  studio,  refuse  to  allow  anyone 
to  interrupt  his  self-accusation  and  remorse. 

He  called  on  me  in  my  first  lodging,  and 
found  me  trying  to  play  "  Summer  is  icumen 
in  "  on  an  old  wooden  flageolet.  But,  although 
he  was  a  musician,  he  asked  me  to  come  to  his 
studio,  to  see  his  piano,  which,  very  old,  was  a 
perfect  instrument  for  the  older  music,  Scar- 
latti, Corelli,  and  the  Elizabethan  songs.  Very 
often  after  that  he  would  play  for  hours  in 
that  dim  room,  while  I  listened,  sitting  and 
smoking  over  the  fire.  Sometimes  another  man 
used  to  come  in  and  play  the  piano  for  him,  so 
that  he  was  free  for  the  'cello,  that  he  handled 
with  the  love  that  is  the  greater  part  of  skill. 
One  winter  we  made  friends  with  a  model  who 
had  a  violin.  Then  we  used  to  keep  Tuesday 
nights  free  for  concerts:  there  would  be  the 
pianist,  the  artist  round  the  corner  in  the  large 
room  playing  the  'cello,  and  the  pretty,  fluttered 
little  girl  playing  the  violin  in  the  long  room  by 
the  fire,  while  I  sat  on  the  sofa  and  tried  to  keep 
time  (for  they  could  not  see  each  other)  by  beat- 


270  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

ing  my  foot  on  the  floor.  Sometimes  all  three 
would  be  together,  and  they  were  never  more 
than  two  bars  apart,  and  the  caretaker  who  lived 
below  the  stairs  used  to  thank  us  solemnly  each 
night  for  the  sweet  music  that  we  made.  The 
painter  made  a  sketch  of  her,  the  only  humorous 
drawing  he  ever  did,  showing  her  seated  in  her 
chair,  with  her  glasses  in  her  lap,  her  hands 
clasped,  her  eyes  turned  up  to  the  ceiling,  en- 
tranced as  if  by  the  melody  from  heaven. 

When  we  were  tired  of  the  music,  the  little 
model  used  to  take  the  kettle  from  the  cupboard, 
and  make  coffee  for  us,  with  a  very  pretty  as- 
sumption of  housewifeliness  and  motherhood. 
Then,  after  the  coffee,  we  would  talk,  and  the 
painter  used  to  sing  old  songs,  or  more  often 
would  sit  content  by  the  fire,  watching  the  fire- 
light bring  out  strange  colours  in  the  unrealised 
dreams  that  waited  on  the  canvases  against  the 
wall. 

His  was  a  simple,  earnest  life,  of  a  kind  that 
is  not  so  rare  as  books  about  studio  life  would 
make  out.  There  are  many  like  him,  who  care 
more  for  art  than  for  recognition,  and  work  on 
quietly,  happily,  living  on  bread  and  cheese,  or 
going  without  it  when  painting  materials  be- 
come a  more  insistent  necessity.  Since  those 
days  he  has  become  a  success  in  spite  of  himself. 
Some  illustrations  he  made  to  fairy  tales  inter- 
ested people,  and  though  he  fled  them  when  he 


A   PAINTER  271 

could,  and  only  asked  to  be  left  alone,  he  has 
become  famous  and  almost  opulent.  But  he 
lives  as  simply  as  before,  and  paints  in  the  same 
manner.  His  pictures  are  all  wonderful,  but  his 
patrons  find  it  as  difficult  to  get  him  to  finish  one 
as  it  is  to  persuade  him  to  let  it  leave  his  studio 
when  done.  In  the  Middle  Ages  he  would  have 
been  a  monk  and  a  painter  of  frescoes,  loved  by 
all  the  gentle-minded  folk  who  came  to  worship 
in  the  church  where  his  dreams  were  painted  on 
the  walls.  Now,  except  among  the  few  who 
know  him  well,  the  best  word  I  hear  said  of  him 
is  that  he  is  a  good  artist,  but  a  criminally  un- 
businesslike man. 


A  GIPSY  POET 


A  GIPSY    POET 

NO  one  knew  whence  he  had  come. 
Only,  he  had  stood  one  day,  a  slight, 
black-haired,  black-eyed  boy,  on  the 
doorstep  of  a  publisher's  office,  shy 
to  enter  or  to  retreat,  with  a  little  manuscript 
volume  of  poems  in  his  hand.  By  some  chance 
the  publisher  himself  happened  to  come  out  on 
his  way  to  lunch,  and  asked  what  the  lad  did, 
waiting  there  on  his  threshold.  On  hearing  the 
boy's  reply,  and  glancing  for  a  moment  through 
the  volume  that  was  timidly  held  out  to  him,  he 
took  him  to  his  club,  gave  him  a  good  lunch,  and 
asked  a  number  of  questions.  He  confessed 
afterwards  that  he  had  learned  nothing  except, 
what  could  be  seen  at  once,  that  the  boy  was  of 
an  odd  kind.  Of  what  kind  he  decided  as  soon 
as  he  had  read  the  poems. 

In  a  month's  time  the  little  book  was  pub- 
lished, and  the  grace,  the  finish,  the  freshness 
of  the  songs  in  it  ensured  at  least  a  critical  suc- 
cess. There  was  something  in  this  little  book 
that  had  not  been  written  before,  something  of 
the  open  road  seen  from  other  eyes  than  those 
of  townsman  or  the  ordinary  country  poet.    The 

275 


276  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

phrases  were  not  those  of  the  casual  observer. 
The  hedges  were  real  hedges,  with  blackberries 
in  them,  or  good  twigs  for  burning,  or  straight 
branches  for  switches  or  walking-sticks.  The 
dark  nights  were  not  made  in  theatres,  but  were 
bad  for  travellers,  good  for  thieves.  Men  and 
women  were  men  and  women  of  the  open  air. 
There  was  something  in  every  poem  in  the  book 
that  had  the  real  blood  and  spirit  of  the  country, 
something  that  made  the  book  different  from 
every  other  volume  of  the  season.  It  was  praised 
in  half  a  dozen  of  the  best  papers,  and  the  pub- 
lisher, proud  of  his  little  romance,  gave  dinner 
parties,  inviting  distinguished  guests  to  meet  his 
poet. 

Before  the  interest  in  him  that  the  book  had 
caused  had  died  away,  someone,  more  practical 
and  more  benevolent  than  most  admirers  of 
young  poets,  had  got  the  boy  permanent  work  as 
librarian  of  a  small  library  in  town.  He  settled 
in  here  among  the  books  and  students,  and 
worked  steadily  from  the  autumn  of  one  year  to 
the  June  of  the  next.  He  had  made  other  friends 
besides  the  distinguished  people.  There  were 
several  lodgings  of  poets  as  young  and  less  for- 
tunate than  himself,  where  he  used  to  come  in 
the  evenings  and  read  his  verses  aloud,  in  an 
effective  sing-song  way,  the  manner,  so  he  said,  in 
which  he  composed  them.  He  loved  to  listen  to 
the  old  stories  of  Morte  d'Arthur  and  the  Mab- 


A  GIPSY    POET  277 

inogion,  that  used  often  to  be  read  aloud  in  the 
evenings  at  these  lodgings,  and  there  was  an 
Indian  book  called  "  Old  Deccan  Days,"  for 
whose  stories  of  rajah  and  ranee  he  would  ask 
again  and  again.  Often  he  would  come  back 
some  days  after  one  of  these  readings  with  poems 
in  which  he  had  retold  the  tales  and  given  them 
a  fresh  significance.  For  us  he  was  always 
eerie ;  there  was  a  motive  in  his  poetry  that  could 
never  be  ours,  an  indefinable  spirit  of  wander- 
ing, and  of  nights  spent  in  the  open  or  in  the 
shadows  of  the  moonlit  woods.  It  was  as  if  a 
goblin  were  our  friend.  Nothing  that  he  did  or 
said  could  have  surprised  us  much. 

When  that  June  came,  it  was  after  a  cold 
May.  Winter  had  lingered  later  than  usual, 
and  June  came  with  a  sudden  warmth  and  a 
sense  of  spring  as  well  as  of  summer.  One  even- 
ing one  of  his  friends  called  at  the  library  to 
take  him  up  to  Soho  to  drink  red  wine,  which 
he  loved,  and  to  talk  and  dine  in  one  of  the  little 
restaurants.  The  library  clerks  told  him  that 
the  poet  had  not  been  in  the  place  either  that 
day  or  the  day  before.  He  had  left  no  message, 
and  was  not  in  his  rooms.  His  landlady  only 
knew  that  he  had  gone  out  very  early  in  the 
morning  two  days  ago,  and  had  not  returned  to 
sleep.  He  had  not  come  back  the  next  day,  and 
after  that  his  friends  took  in  turn  to  call  every 
evening.    They  found  it  necessary  to  persuade 


278  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

his  landlady  that  she  had  no  right  to  sell  his 
few  possessions.  Ten  days  later,  as  we  were  sit- 
ting at  dinner  at  our  usual  small  restaurant  in 
Soho,  he  came  in.  His  clothes  were  dirty  and 
ragged,  and  his  boots  were  almost  worn  out. 
He  had  no  money,  he  said,  but  he  was  going  to 
the  library  in  the  morning,  where  some  was  due 
to  him.  He  was  skilful  in  parrying  our  urgent 
questions,  and  we  scarcely  knew  if  he  wished  us 
not  to  know  where  he  had  been,  or  if  he  were 
ignorant  himself.  But  there  was  a  brighter 
light  in  his  eyes  than  we  had  seen  since  first 
he  came  among  us,  and  a  clear  ring  in  his 
voice. 

For  the  rest  of  that  year  he  worked  regularly 
in  the  library,  and  read  and  wrote  or  saw  his 
friends  in  the  evenings.  Sometimes  when  we 
were  with  him  in  the  streets  a  man  or  a  woman 
would  speak  to  him  in  an  odd  tongue.  He  al- 
ways pretended  not  to  understand  them,  but  we 
noticed  that  afterwards  he  contrived  to  be  rid 
of  us  for  the  rest  of  the  evening.  We  knew  that 
somehow  his  life  was  not  ours,  but  we  liked  him 
very  well. 

In  the  following  May  he  disappeared  again, 
though  for  a  few  days  only.  In  June  he  went, 
and  in  July,  returning  each  time  tired  out, 
happy,  and  secret,  an  insoluble  enigma.  There 
began  to  be  troubles  for  him  with  the  library 
authorities. 


A  GIPSY    POET  279 

One  evening  in  early  August  he  was  in  a  room 
in  Chelsea,  drinking  and  singing  old  songs.  His 
face  was  flushed,  and  he  was  overexcited.  The 
songs  seemed  a  relief  to  him,  and  he  sang  one 
after  another.  At  the  end  of  the  evening,  after 
someone  had  sung  one  of  the  usual  English 
songs,  he  jumped  up  waving  his  glass,  and  sang 
uproariously  in  a  language  we  none  of  us  under- 
stood. His  face  was  transfigured  as  he  sang,  and 
he  swayed  his  whole  body  with  the  rhythm  of 
his  tune.  When  he  had  finished  singing  he 
tossed  the  wine  down  his  throat,  looked  queerly 
at  us,  and  then  laughed  to  himself  and  sat  sud- 
denly down. 

Afterwards  two  of  his  friends  walked  with 
him  to  the  Embankment,  as  he  lived  at  that  time 
in  lodgings  on  the  south  side  of  the  river.  Just 
as  they  turned  up  over  Battersea  Bridge,  a  man 
and  a  woman  stepped  across  the  road  and  waited 
in  the  lamplight.  The  man  had  a  cap  over  his 
eyes,  and  a  loose  necktie.  He  was  very  straight, 
and  walked  more  easily  than  a  loafer.  The 
woman  had  a  scarlet  shawl.  As  the  three  of 
them  went  by,  the  poet  humming  a  tune  for  the 
others  to  hear,  the  woman  touched  his  arm,  and 
he  looked  round  into  her  face. 

"  Good-night,  you  fellows,"  he  said  to  the  two 
who  were  with  him,  shook  hands  with  them, 
which  was  not  his  usual  custom,  and  left  them, 
and  went  off  with  that  strange  couple.    They 


28o  BOHEMIA   IN  LONDON 

stood  looking  after  him  in  surprise,  but  he  did 
not  turn. 

He  disappeared  from  Bohemia  as  mysteri- 
ously as  he  came.  That  was  four  years  ago,  and 
not  one  of  us  has  seen  him  since  that  night.  Per- 
haps he  will  walk  in  again,  with  his  boots  worn 
out  and  happiness  alight  in  his  face.  Perhaps 
he  is  dead.  Perhaps  he  is  wandering  with  his 
own  people  along  the  country  roads. 


CONCLUSION 


CONCLUSION 

CRABBE  wrote  to  Edmund  Burke  in 
1781 :  "  I  am  one  of  those  outcasts  on 
the  world,  who  are  without  a  friend, 
without  employment,  and  without 
bread.  I  had  a  partial  father,  who  gave  me  a 
better  education  than  his  broken  fortune  would 
have  allowed,  and  a  better  than  was  necessary,  as 
he  could  give  me  that  only.  ...  In  April,  last, 
I  came  to  London  with  three  pounds,  and  flat- 
tered myself  this  would  be  sufficient  to  supply  me 
with  the  common  necessaries  of  life  till  my  abili- 
ties should  procure  me  more;  of  these  I  had  the 
highest  opinion,  and  a  poetical  vanity  contrib- 
uted to  my  delusion.  I  knew  little  of  the  world, 
and  had  read  books  only;  I  wrote,  and  fancied 
perfection  in  my  compositions ;  when  I  wanted 
bread,  they  promised  me  affluence,  and  soothed 
me  with  dreams  of  reputation,  whilst  my  appear- 
ance subjected  me  to  contempt.  Time,  reflec- 
tion, and  want  have  shown  me  my  mistake." 

In  18 17  he  wrote  to  a  young  lady:  "  You  may 
like  me  very  well — but,  child  of  simplicity  and 
virtue,  how  can  you  let  yourself  be  so  deceived? 

283 


284  BOHEMIA  IN   LONDON 

Am  I  not  a  great  fat  rector,  living  upon  a  mighty 
income,  while  my  poor  curate  starves  upon  the 
scraps  that  fall  from  the  luxurious  table?  Do 
I  not  visit  that  horrible  London,  and  enter  into 
its  abominable  dissipations?  Am  I  not  this  day 
going  to  dine  on  venison  and  drink  claret?  Have 
I  not  been  at  election  dinners,  and  joined  the 
Babel-confusion  of  a  tov^n  hall?  Child  of  sim- 
plicity, am  I  fit  to  be  a  friend  to  you?     .     .     ." 

Bohemia  is  only  a  stage  in  a  man's  life,  except 
in  the  case  of  fools  and  a  very  few  others.  It 
is  not  a  profession.  A  man  does  not  set  out  say- 
ing, "  I  am  going  to  be  a  Bohemian " ;  he 
trudges  along,  whispering  to  himself,  "  I  am 
going  to  be  a  poet,  or  an  artist,  or  some  other 
kind  of  great  man,"  and  finds  Bohemia,  like  a 
tavern  by  the  wayside.  He  may  stay  there  for 
years,  and  then  suddenly  take  post-horses  along 
the  road ;  he  may  stay  a  little  time,  and  then  go 
back  whence  he  came,  to  start  again  in  another 
direction  as  a  Civil  Servant,  or  a  respectable 
man  of  business ;  only  a  very  few  settle  down  in 
the  tavern,  forever  postponing  their  departure, 
until  at  last  they  die,  old  men,  still  laughing, 
talking,  flourishing  glasses,  and  drinking  to  their 
future  prosperity. 

I  have  tried  to  show  what  life  is  like  in  this 
tavern  on  the  road  to  success — this  tavern  whose 
sign,  gaily  painted — a  medley  of  paint-brushes, 
pens,  inkpots,  and  palettes,  with  a  tankard  or 


CONCLUSION  285 

two  in  the  middle  of  them — hangs  out  so  invit- 
ingly over  the  road  that  no  young  man  can  pass 
it  w^ithout  going  in  at  the  door.  With  memories 
of  the  older  times,  and  pictures  of  the  life  of 
to-day,  I  have  done  my  best  to  get  the  spirit  of 
it  on  paper;  and  it  is  clear,  now  that  I  have 
finished,  that  there  is  something  left  unsaid.  I 
have  not  brought  Bohemia  into  perspective  with 
the  rest  of  a  man's  existence,  nor  told  what  hap- 
pens when  he  comes  to  leave  it. 

For  it  is  not  an  uninterrupted  succession  of 
artifices  to  get  hold  of  daily  bread,  drinking 
bouts,  wedding  parties,  and  visits  to  the  studios 
and  lodging  of  friends — small  meaningless  pains 
and  pleasures.  These  things  are  not  ends  in 
themselves.  There  is  something  behind  the  very 
extravagance  of  the  costumes  that  we  wear.  Our 
life,  our  clothes  are  different  from  conventional 
life  and  fashionable  clothes,  but  they  are  not 
different  from  whim  or  caprice.  People  do  not 
make  fools  of  themselves  for  the  fun  of  the 
thing,  except  in  France.  They  never  do  it  in 
Bohemia.  The  secret  of  the  whole  is  a  need 
for  the  emphasis  and  expression  of  individual- 
ity. When  a  youth,  brought  up  in  ordinary 
family  life,  feels  somehow  that  he  is  not  quite 
like  the  others,  that  he  also  is  one  of  the  prophets, 
the  very  sign  of  his  vocation  is  an  urgent  need 
of  marking  his  differences.  He  may  have  an 
overwhelming  desire  to  shock  his  nearest  and 


286  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

dearest  relatives — even  that  is  excusable — per- 
haps he  v^ill  leave  "  Tom  Jones "  on  his 
mother's  drawing-room  table.  The  regularity, 
the  routine,  the  exactness  of  his  homelife  w^ill 
be  about  his  neck  like  a  mill-stone,  as  he  strug- 
gles to  fly  with  wings  where  others  walk.  He 
will  feel,  perhaps  without  admitting  it  to  him- 
self, the  horror  of  being  indistinguishable  from 
among  the  rest  of  the  human  ants  about  him, 
and,  by  growing  long  hair,  and  refusing  to  wear 
a  collar,  does  his  best  to  strengthen,  not  others 
so  much  as  himself,  in  believing  that  his  is  a 
peculiar  species. 

And  so,  when  he  goes  along  the  road  with 
his  manuscripts  or  his  sketchbooks,  lonely  but 
very  hopeful,  and  sees  that  gay  sign  hanging 
out,  and,  looking  into  the  tavern,  catches 
glimpses  of  a  hundred  others  as  extravagant  as 
himself,  he  tells  himself  with  utter  joy  that  here 
are  his  own  people,  and,  being  like  everyone  else 
a  gregarious  creature,  throws  himself  through 
the  door  and  into  their  arms.  There  are  no 
Bohemians  in  the  desert. 

As  soon  as  he  is  with  his  own  people,  dress- 
ing to  please  himself,  and  living  a  life  as  dif- 
ferent as  possible  from  the  one  that  he  has 
known,  the  whole  energy  of  his  need  for  self- 
expression  pours  itself  without  hindrance  into 
his  art.  (Only  the  wasters  lose  sight  of  the  end 
in  the  means,  and  live  the  life  without  thought 


CONCLUSION  287 

of  what  they  set  out  to  gain.)  The  mad  pleas- 
ures of  the  life,  even  the  discomforts,  the  pos- 
sible starvation,  have  their  value  in  being  such 
contrasts  to  the  precision  of  the  home  he  has 
left.  Material  difficulties,  too,  matter  little  to 
him,  for  his  interests  are  on  another  plane.  He 
can  escape  from  the  harassing  knowledge  that 
his  purse  contains  only  twopence-halfpenny  in 
the  glorious  oblivion  of  painting  a  picture  or 
fitting  exact  words  to  an  emotion.  He  has  al- 
ways a  temple  in  his  mind  which  the  winds  of 
trouble  do  not  enter,  and  where  he  may  worship 
before  a  secret  altar  a  flame  that  burns  more 
steadily  and  brighter  with  every  offering  he  lays 
before  it.  More  practical  things  disturb  him 
very  little — do  you  remember  Hazlitt's  saying, 
when  he  and  John  Lamb  "  got  into  a  discussion 
as  to  whether  Holbein's  colouring  was  as  good 
as  that  of  Vandyke?  Hazlitt  denied  it.  Lamb 
asserted  the  contrary;  till  at  length  they  both 
became  so  irritated  they  upset  the  card-table 
and  seized  each  other  by  the  throat.  In  the 
struggle  that  ensued  Hazlitt  got  a  black  eye; 
but,  when  the  two  combatants  were  parted,  Haz- 
litt turned  to  Talfourd,  who  was  offering  his 
aid,  and  said :  *  You  need  not  trouble  yourself, 
sir.  /  do  not  mind  a  blow,  sir;  nothing  affects 
me  but  an  abstract  idea/  "  * 

That  is  a  very  perfect  illustration  of  the  Bo- 
hemian's attitude  towards  reverses  of  fortune 

*  B,  R.  Haydon's  "  Correspondence." 


288  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

that  are  not  concerned  with  the  progress  of  his 
art.  A  picture  ill  painted,  a  stodgy  article  (oh, 
the  torments  of  forcing  life  into  a  leaden  piece 
of  prose!),  these  will  upset  him,  make  him  mis- 
erable, dejected,  at  war  with  all  the  world.  But 
penury;  why,  that  is  but  a  little  price  to  pay  for 
freedom;  and  squalor  may  be  easily  tolerated 
for  the  sake  of  an  escape  from  convention. 

And,  now,  to  speak  of  the  farewell  to  Bo- 
hemia; for  the  young  man  grows  older,  and 
perhaps  earns  money,  and  takes  upon  himself 
responsibilities  to  another  goddess  than  the 
white  Venus  of  the  arts.  It  is  a  long  time  since 
"  The  Lady  Anne  of  Bretaigne,  espying  Chartier 
the  King's  Secretary  and  a  famous  poet,  leaning 
upon  his  elbows  at  a  table  end  fast  asleepe,  shee 
stooping  downe,  and  openly  kissing  him,  said, 
We  must  honour  with  our  kisse  the  mouth  from 
whence  so  many  sweete  verses  and  golden  poems 
have  proceeded";*  but  women  have  still  a 
fondness  for  poets  and  painters,  and,  not  too 
critical  of  the  value  of  the  vesses  and  pictures, 
are  even  willing  to  marry  their  authors,  money- 
less, untidy  wretches  as  they  are.  But  no  sooner 
have  they  married  than  they  begin  to  tame  them. 
Even  the  maddest  cigarette-smoking  art  student, 
when  she  has  married  her  painter,  takes  him 
away  from  Bohemia,  which  is,  as  perhaps  she 
knows  without  thinking  of  it,  not  the  place  for 

•  Peacham's  "  Compleat  Gentleman." 


CONCLUSION  289 

bringing  up  a  family.  The  woman  is  always 
for  stability  and  order;  a  precarious,  haphaz- 
ard, irregular,  unhealthy  existence  has  none  of 
the  compensations  for  her  that  it  holds  out  to 
her  husband.  Not  that  she  does  not  think  of 
him,  too;  but  she  prefers  to  see  him  healthy 
than  a  genius.  Anyhow,  the  door  into  the  reg- 
istrar's office  is  the  door  out  of  Bohemia.  Things 
are  never  quite  the  same  again.  Witness  Lamb, 
writing  to  Coleridge:  "I  shall  half  wish  you 
unmarried  (don't  show  this  to  Mrs.  C.)  for  one 
evening  only,  to  have  the  pleasure  of  smoking 
with  you  and  drinking  egg-hot  in  some  little 
smoky  room  in  a  pothouse,  for  I  know  not  yet 
how  I  shall  like  you  in  a  decent  room  and  look- 
ing quite  happy." 

And  then,  too,  whether  she  means  it  or  not, 
the  wife  alters  the  man's  view  of  the  goal  at 
the  end  of  the  journey.  She  is  always  on  the 
side  of  the  recognised  success.  The  artist,  how- 
ever unruly,  finds  himself  once  a  week  wearing 
a  frock-coat  at  an  "  at  home  "  given  by  his  wife 
to  "  useful  people."  He  soon  discovers  that  he 
must  exhibit  in  the  usual  places,  if  only  to  please 
his  lady.  He  makes  fewer  experiments,  but  set- 
tles down  to  adapt  his  technique  to  subjects  that 
are  likely  to  tell.  He  works  harder,  or  at  least 
more  consistently,  and  has  less  time  for  other 
people's  studios.  He  learns  that  he  is  not  a 
god  after  all,  but  only  a  workingman.    The 


290  BOHEMIA   IN   LONDON 

rebellious  dreams  of  his  youth  die  in  his  breast, 
and  he  ends  a  Royal  Academician. 

The  writer,  when  he  marries,  learns  that  he 
must  no  longer  trust  to  earning  a  living  by  acci- 
dent, while  he  does  his  favourite  work.  There 
are  two  ways  open  to  him:  he  may  do  an  im- 
mense amount  of  criticism  and  journalism,  and 
keep  his  originality  for  what  leisure  he  can 
find,  or  he  may  make  his  best  work  the  easiest 
to  sell.  To  keep  up  his  prestige  at  home  he  must 
become  a  popular  author. 

The  worst  of  it  is  that  in  becoming  a  success 
you  lose  the  sympathy  of  the  friends  you  have 
left  in  Bohemia,  and  find  that  for  them  you  are 
even  as  one  of  the  abhorred  Philistines,  tolerated 
for  old  sake's  sake,  but  no  longer  one  of  the 
fighting  band. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  young  man  does 
not  marry,  he  finds  as  he  grows  up  that  he  is 
less  and  less  of  a  Bohemian.  His  individuality 
no  longer  needs  for  its  emphasis  expression  in 
externals.  His  taste  in  talk  becomes  less  catho- 
lic— ^^he  is  bored  by  the  extravagant  young  fools 
who  are  ready  to  say  anything  about  everything 
they  know  nothing  about.  He  is  annoyed  at 
last,  unless  he  is  so  philosophic  as  to  be  amused, 
by  the  little  people  with  their  great  pretences, 
their  dignities  without  pedestals;  and  he  finds, 
as  he  becomes  less  able  to  give  them  the  homage 
they  require,  that  they  become  annoyed  with 


CONCLUSION  291 

him,  and  can  do  very  well  without  him,  hiving 
new  sets  of  young  admirers  of  their  own. 

A  novel,  a  book  of  poems,  or  a  picture  wins 
him  some  real  recognition — and  with  it,  per- 
haps, a  rise  in  income.  His  relations,  who  have 
for  so  long  neglected  him  as  a  black  and  errant 
sheep,  discover  a  pride  in  him,  and  want  to  in- 
troduce him  to  their  friends.  He  is  compelled, 
as  it  were  by  circumstances  alone,  to  wear  better 
clothes,  and  to  take  what  he  is  told  is  his  place 
in  society.  With  better  clothes  comes  a  snob- 
bish, but  pardonable,  dislike  of  being  seen  with 
the  carelessly  dressed.  He  moves  to  more  con- 
venient rooms,  has  a  napkin  on  his  breakfast 
table,  and  is  waked  in  the  morning  by  a  maid 
with  hot  water,  instead  of  by  an  alarm  clock. 
Who  knows? — he  may  even  rent  a  cottage  in  the 
country.  A  thousand  things  combine  to  take 
him  out  of  Bohemia. 

And  it  is  better  so.  There  are  few  sadder 
sights  than  an  old  man  without  any  manners 
aping  the  boyishness  of  his  youth  without  the 
excuse  of  its  ideals,  going  from  tavern  to  tavern 
with  the  young,  talking  rubbish  till  two  in  the 
morning,  painfully  keeping  pace  with  a  frivolity 
in  which  he  has  no  part.  Caliban  playing  the 
Ariel — it  is  too  pitiful  to  be  amusing.  There 
are  men  who  live  out  all  their  lives  in  Bohemia 
(to  paraphrase  Santayana's  definition  of  fanati- 
cism), "redoubling  their  extravagances  when 


292  BOHEMIA  IN  LONDON 

they  have  forgotten  their  aim."  I  am  reminded 
again  of  my  friend's  saying,  that  of  all  bondages 
vagabondage  is  the  one  from  w^hich  it  is  most 
difficult  to  escape.  If  a  man  stays  in  it  too  long, 
if  he  allows  its  garlands  to  become  fetters,  its 
vagaries  to  lose  their  freshness  and  petrify  into 
habits,  he  can  never  get  away.  When  I  think 
of  the  deathbed  of  one  of  these  old  men — of 
the  moment  when  he  knows  of  a  sudden  that  his 
life  is  gone  from  him,  and  that  after  all  he  has 
done  nothing — I  quicken  my  resolve  to  escape 
when  my  time  comes,  and  not  to  linger  till  it  is 
too  late. 

But  now,  in  youth,  it  is  the  best  life  there  is, 
the  most  joyously,  honestly  youthful.  It  will 
be  something  to  remember,  when  I  am  become 
a  respectable  British  citizen,  paying  income  tax 
and  sitting  on  the  Local  Government  Board, 
that  once  upon  a  time  in  my  motley  "  I  have 
flung  roses,  roses,  riotously  with  the  throng." 
It  will  make  a  staid  middle  age  more  pleasant 
in  its  ordered  ease  to  think  of  other  days  when  a 
girl  with  blue  sleeves  rolled  to  her  elbows 
cooked  me  a  dinner  from  kindness  of  heart, 
because  she  knew  that  otherwise  I  should  have 
gone  without  it;  when  no  day  was  like  the 
last,  when  a  sovereign  seemed  a  fortune,  when 
all  my  friends  were  gods,  and  life  itself  a  starry 
masquerade.  My  life  will  be  the  happier,  turn 
out  what  it  may,  for  these  friendships,  these  pot- 


CONCLUSION  293 

house  nights,  these  evenings  in  the  firelight  of 
a  studio,  and  these  walks,  two  or  three  of  us 
together  talking  from  our  hearts,  along  the  Em- 
bankment in  the  Chelsea  evening,  with  the  lamps 
sparkling  above  us  in  the  leaves  of  the  trees,  the 
river  moving  with  the  sweet  noise  of  waters, 
the  wings  of  youth  on  our  feet,  and  all  the  world 
before  us. 


THE  END 


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